This wallflower is usually a young man wedged in between two very
lovely ladies or a young lady wedged in between two most interesting
men. Being a wallflower in a situation of this kind is usually quite
maddening to everybody present. And you are one in this particular
circumstance because you cannot converse.
Conversation, the most artificial flower of life! Something that, like
philosophy, is thought by many to be totally useless! Ah, how sad are
those two exclamations above, particularly the last. The first is quite
true but too painfully frank. The second is a cockeyed lie.
There are several Little Blue Books which would be of assistance to you
should you desire to make a better conversationalist of yourself.[*]
[Footnote *: Little Blue Books, No. 367 (How to Improve Your
Conversation); No. 821 (How to Improve Your Vocabulary), No. 734 (A
Book of Useful Phrases), etc.]
The thing that most of all makes you a conversational dud is a tendency
to voice too rabid opinions on subjects which are of little or no
concern to the people about you. To be quietly opinionated, lack too
virulent a dose of religiosity is quite all right. That is the sauce
piquant to any conversation. Only narrowness and intolerance are to
be avoided. Most intelligent people have discovered that there is
no absolute of whatever nature and find all sorts of opinions and
judgments quite naive and entertaining.
It is always wise in any sort of conversation to avoid pedantry, school
teacherishness. You are assuming when you talk to people that they are
of equal intelligence. If you are sure that they aren’t, reduce the
length of your words and simplify your comparisons and analogies.
And don’t be a preacher unless you are as clever as George Bernard
Shaw. Most people hate being preached at.
With these few simples you should find conversation quite easy. It,
however, like everything else, must have glitter and sparkle and a
great deal of subtlety. More must hit the ear than is actually heard.
But that is all there is to say to the young man wallflower except
that his is not such a sorry state. After all, there are other things
that could be worse. Even if you are deformed in some way it shouldn’t
bother you in the slightest; women don’t care what you look like, so
long as you are clean and not too utterly repulsive for words.
And it is not your personal appearance that can make you repulsive;
it’s your personality and the habits of speech and attitude you have
acquired.