Asking questions in a conversation is a good thing, it shows that you are curious(link) about the person in front of you or the discussed topic.
However, this leads to people thinking that they have to ask questions, so the people in front of them feel better, but is it true?
Before getting to the topic, my opinion is that too much of a good thing is a bad thing, so while asking questions in a conversation is actually good, asking too many questions might be a bad thing or at least annoying.
Is asking too many questions in conversation bad or annoying?
People can tell when you are genuinely interested in them or what they discuss, so asking questions for the sake of asking questions is annoying, and it will feel like an interview where no one wants to respond honestly to those questions.
If you are genuinely interested in a topic or a person, you won’t be in a situation where you ask too many questions since you will most likely wait for a more detailed answer after every question you ask.
It is more important to ask the right questions than how many questions you ask, it is not a contest where you have to put as many questions as possible.
When and how to ask questions in a conversation?
Here are a few things to have in mind when you ask a question in a conversation:
-The best way to make sure you are not annoying when you ask questions is to use open questions that can’t be answered with “Yes” or “No” since that will make the person in front of you go into more detail and you will not end up throwing questions at them like tennis balls from an automated robot which is certainly annoying.
-You should not put more questions when you don’t really want to know more about the topic since they will easily notice that you don’t pay attention to their answers, but rather you are just overly polite, so you feel like you need to ask more questions.
-Asking more questions can be bad when the person in front of you doesn’t enjoy discussing that topic.
-Ask what you feel like asking do not overthink the question, they will feel that you are thinking too much about the question, and you might also lose focus on what they are saying when you think too much about what to ask. Even if it is a question about them or the topic, it feels like thinking too much about you in a conversation.
-Don’t ask too many questions about someone you don’t know well.
If you don’t know each other very well, it is weird to want to know everything about someone without taking the time to share some things about yourself.
We like to share more with people we trust, and in order to trust somebody, we have to know more about them. So, it’s easy to see why someone who asks many questions without talking about themselves can be annoying even if they are genuinely interested in what we are talking about.
A conversation is an exchange, you have to give something to receive something back, it is not math, it is not always that you have to ask a question and answer one, but we usually feel when it is not a fair conversation, and we give more than we get out of that.
Read Also: 7 Reasons Your Friends Are Ignoring You
Conclusion
The worst thing that you can do in a conversation is to think to much about what you have to do, it is ok to work on yourself and improve your communication skills, but don’t overthink it.
If you usually talk too much, it is ok to try to improve that and ask more questions, but for that, you have to pay more attention to the person you are talking with, which will help you be genuinely interested in what they are talking. However, if you think too much about it, you might be too quiet or ask too many questions, which is also annoying and doesn’t come naturally to you.
The conclusion is that you should be yourself, don’t be afraid to ask questions when you want to know more, but don’t be afraid to talk more if you feel that you should talk.
