A man at a dinner party is talking with the woman seated next to him. They never met before. He talks, she listens. She talks, he listens. After a long conversation, they feel ŧenderness for each other, and he puts his arm around her.
"Once upon a time, there was a man who understood that profound conversations often begin with small talk."
The notion of levels of communication
As human beings, we can address each other by verbal as well as nonverbal means. Regardless of the form, the person who initiates the communication has to meet the other person at eye level – emotionally and mentally.
Since we often cannot know but only have a sense of the other person’s state, we need tools to facilitate contact. Thus, when we initiate communication, we need to consider which level of communication we are aiming at. Human communication can be divided into levels that we can move between, individually and together, based on need, situation and mood. At a reception, it is good to be able to engage in light, superficial conversation; following this, we may move to ever deeper levels as needed and as shared interests emerge.