the interview is a very simple form for a conversation to take. As you would imagine it involves Jonathan asking questions, with the answers he receives leading to the next question. Alternatively, questions needn't connect one to the next, instead being asked from a preconceived pool; what do you do for a living? do you have hobbies? etc. This conversation format is well paired with:
tell me more which ensures a conversation has linearity in its evolution. This conversation can also be called and then. Most simple for this format would be Jonathan prompting a day-in-the-life talk where waking leads to breakfast leads to ping pong leads to emails leads to some sort of macaroni lunch, and so on. Helpfully, if a tell me more conversation should move to an unsustainable tangent, returning to the main narrative is simple and avoids most awkward pauses. Tell me more and interview are both about extracting information rather than providing and will at times appear very similar, but:
all about me is the exact opposite. As the name suggests Jonathan uses this technique to talk about himself and his accomplishments, real or fictitious. He uses it in two distinct but related situations; meek, when trying to impress those whose accomplishments and bearing intimidate him; strong, when trying to impress those who he feels superior to in some way. Meek is employed with the other parties in mind, an attempt to prove to them Jonathan's right to be at the table. What other people say is vital to which anecdote or comment Jonathan says next. Strong, however, is dismissive of the other parties and is often delivered via an overwhelming staccato incorporating what the other person says only so far as it lets Jonathan tell another story from his life. In the most extreme situations strong becomes little more than a glorified stand-up routine. From one extreme to another:
the passive conversation needs minimal or no input from Jonathan. He need only be in proximity to others having a conversation so he can appear to be participating, even if he never speaks. Although this conversation seems simple it cannot be executed with complete strangers or Jonathan appears to be a weird creep. The too stoned variation facilitates a passive conversation where Jonathan wants to provide explanation for his silent observation. In this case Jonathan simply informs the people he's very high and content to just listen, relieving them of any obligation to incorporate him and providing the social credibility of drug use in the process.
Go with the flow is not one of Jonathan's conversation types. He finds its free-form nature terrifying and doomed to failure. While trying to maintain an unstructured conversation Jonathan tries to anticipate pitfalls, distracting himself from what's at hand and eventually generating too much self-fulfilling white noise to continue.
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