Now you know the problem. We’re all NPCs. Well, 99% of us are. 1% of that 99% are aware of the problem, and now you’re part of that 1%. Welcome to the resistance.
I’ll say it now so you don’t have to: this is a difficult position to be in. It’s difficult to know that you have a problem.
You’re no longer blissfully ignorant.
You have your diagnosis—NPC-itis—but you’re still not sure what the treatment is.
That’s about to change. Let’s begin.
You’re familiar with the concept of NPCs. I’m sure you can imagine them (us?):
wandering around strip malls, bumping into each other like bumper cars, never exchanging any meaningful information, keeping our heads down and hoping nobody gets in our way.
Our first objective on our journey to create the new human being is to understand the problem—really understand it. I want to make you an expert in identifying the symptoms of NPC-itis, which most often manifest in the things we say. If you can identify the common phrases used by NPCs, you can stop using them, and you can identify other NPCs in your life who may need to read this book.
So what is NPC dialogue, exactly? What’s on the script? Let’s go over some of the most popular pre-loaded NPC dialogue options. Some of them may surprise you. I’m going to break down each one and tell you what makes it so NPC.
1. “So, what do you do?”
This is the classic NPC way to start a conversation with a stranger. We’ve all been there. At a party or at the grocery store. Anywhere, really.
“What do you do?” It’s such a human thing to ask. Humans are action-based creatures, so it’s only natural that we’d want to know the activities undertaken by our fellow members of the species.
The problem is that they’ve heard it before. When they hear you say it, it’s an immediate tell of your NPC-ness. Even if they have an interesting job that lends itself to a good conversation, it’s not a good foot to put forward. First impressions matter, and this is just not a good one.
Also, what if they hate their job? What if they’re sick of people asking about it? Maybe they don’t even “do” anything. And this brings us to an extremely key point: do not make assumptions. This is a difficult rule to follow in everyday conversation, but you’ll quickly notice that it’s a common theme in many of the standard NPC dialogue options. Which brings us to…
2. “Crazy weather we’re having, huh?”
Is the weather really ever that crazy? Or is it just weather? Sure, climate change is happening, and extreme weather is more common, and there is, in fact, a lot of what we might call “objectively crazy” weather happening.
The problem is that the weather is always low-hanging fruit. When you bring up the weather, they’ll know right away, without even the faintest shadow of a doubt, that you’re an NPC.
I should point out that it’s an assumption to think that your conversation partner will think that the weather is crazy. They might think the weather is quite normal, actually, in which case you’ll have started a conversation on the wrong foot.
First impressions matter, and for most people, the rule of thumb in the background of their awareness goes a little something like “Once an NPC, always an NPC.” You may only have one chance, so you need to make it count.
And again, I beg you: don’t make assumptions. Let’s see another one.
3. “Ugh, Mondays, am I right?”
You see the problem? Again, immediately recognizable as NPC dialogue, and again, an assumption. What if your conversation partner likes Mondays? Or what if their Monday is going well? You’ll have taken the air out of their sails, and now they won’t feel comfortable opening up to you about how much they love Mondays, or how well this particular Monday is going. You’ll have deprived them of the opportunity to flip the script.
Are you getting the hang of it? Let’s go a little deeper.
4. “Any fun plans for the weekend?”
At first glance, this one isn’t bad. It’s open-ended, future-facing, seemingly the perfect setup for an interesting conversation. But it misses one fundamental truth about the world we live in: most of us don’t have fun plans for the weekend.
The average person will freeze up upon being asked this question, because they won’t have any fun plans. And now they’ll be even more painfully aware of their lack of plans. By asking the question, you normalize the assumption that all of us should have something going on in the upcoming weekend. And you’ve alienated a fellow human.
There is a lesson in presence to be learned here. Not thinking too far ahead, but living in this moment, right now.
5. “Not too bad, can’t complain.”
It’s important that you learn the typical NPC responses to NPC questions. This is one.
I’ve alluded to the fact that most conversations you have will be with NPCs. This makes the work of dropping the script more difficult. It’s easier to snap out of NPC mode when you’re talking to a non-NPC, someone with unpredictable dialogue options who’s writing the script in real time. But the reality is that only about 1% of your conversations will be with a non-NPC.
Not too bad, can’t complain. Such a boring thing to say. And so negative. Not bad? Just a negation of a negative. Not too bad? That implies that you are bad, but not so bad that it’s overwhelming. It’s a perfect conversation-ender. Because what is your conversation partner supposed to say to that?
And then there’s the “can’t complain.” Doubling down on the negated negativity. You can’t complain? It implies that complaining is your default mode, and that there’s simply nothing to complain about right now—or that you’re somehow restricted from complaining. It implies that there have things to complain about in the past, and that there will be in the future. It takes both conversation partners out of the present moment, burdening you both with the full weight of past and future.
6. “Just living the dream!”
If you want to avoid the negativity of the previous dialogue option, you might say something like this.
But what does living the dream even mean? What dream? It’s a disorienting thing to say. We are, right now, wide awake. Save the dream-talk for your actual dreams. We are awake, and we should act like it.
I recommend that you avoid referencing states of consciousness that aren’t within reach unless you’re willing to say something out-of-the-box, or unless you’re willing to explain exactly what the dream is and how it feels to be living it.
It’s perfectly fine to rely on clichés sometimes, but you shouldn’t open a conversation with one, lest you be immediately identified as an NPC. If you do decide to use a cliché, you should use it sparingly, and you should have a good sense of what it is that you actually mean by it.
7. “It is what it is.”
This is basically saying nothing. It’s a nothing statement. It will make your conversation partner feel as though you’re wasting their time. It means, I repeat, absolutely nothing. Consequently, I have nothing more to say about it.
8. “How about that local sports team?”
Sports is one of the most common topics of conversation for NPCs, and it’s why the world continues to pour billions of dollars into the industry (or maybe it’s vice versa—I digress).
The world convinces us that sports are interesting and important, and we internalize that belief by letting it bleed into our conversations. But the truth is none of us really care about sports. On our deathbed, we’re not going to be thinking about whether our preferred team won or lost the game on any given day.
Of course, there are certain circumstances when sports can lead to non-NPC conversation. But this requires a level of skill and nuance that should only be attempted by a seasoned non-NPC conversationalist. If you can, I advise that you avoid this kind of dialogue.
9. “Can you believe it’s already [month/season]?”
Yes, they can. We all can. Time has been passing at exactly the same rate for as long as we’ve all been alive, and the months and seasons have marched forward in exactly the same sequence as they always have. To invite someone to feel disbelief at something as constant as the passage of time is to deny reality itself. Some people may even be offended at your assumption that they would think the passage of time is so unbelievable.
10. “Work’s been crazy lately.”
Has it, though?
Here’s a rule of thumb when referring to things as crazy: if it didn’t make the news, it wasn’t that crazy. If it doesn’t spark some kind of conversation around ethics or abnormal psychology, it wasn’t that crazy. If you’re just saying it just to say it, it wasn’t that crazy.
This is another lesson that I hope to impress upon you: words matter. Breaking out of the NPC mode of existence is about understanding the words you choose to use, and owning them, and meaning them.
11. “Time flies, doesn’t it?”
See dialogue option 9.
12. “Small world!”
Is it, though? Is it really? Or is that just something people say, something that you say when you’re not sure what to say?
It’s not the world that’s small. It’s your circles. You’re an NPC, moving ceaselessly across the same three square feet over and over. It’s no wonder some kind of “coincidence” has occurred that would tempt you to comment on the world’s smallness.
Remember: if the world feels small, it’s because your world is small—because you are an NPC. When this dialogue option comes to mind, use it as an opportunity to remind yourself that you can freely move about the world, free to say whatever you want. Free to be a PC.
13. “What’s new with you?”
No one really knows how to answer this. What’s new to someone will not always be evident to them.
This is a very self-centered question, because what you really mean when you ask this is “What has happened in your life that I don’t know about?” It takes the person out of their lived experience, in which things being “new” is not really a common thing, and forces them to put themselves in your shoes and try to remember what you do and don’t know about them.
Change happens gradually, and things that are “new” become old very quickly, so when you ask someone “what’s new,” they will very often come up blank.
___
Are you getting it? Are you starting to see the problem?
I’ve included a more exhaustive list of NPC dialogue options below for your review. Feel free to skim the list to acquaint yourself with the sound and feel of NPC dialogue, and for extra credit, go through each option and break it down like I did above.
As you read, think: what is it, exactly, that makes each response so characteristically NPC?
“Man, I need a vacation.”
“Is it Friday yet?”
“At least it’s hump day.”
“Wow, that’s wild.”
“It’s a good problem to have.”
“Gotta love it.”
“Everything happens for a reason.”
“Just taking it one day at a time.”
“Well, you know how it is.”
“What do you do for fun?”
“You look tired.”
“Looking forward to the weekend?”
“You know me, just staying busy.”
“I hate adulting.”
“Gotta pay the bills somehow.”
“You win some, you lose some.”
“Man, I could use a drink.”
“Well, gotta get back to the grind.”
“Gotta love this time of year.”
“We should totally grab coffee sometime!”
“You just never know these days.”
“Gotta roll with the punches.”
“I feel old.”
“Man, it’s been a while!”
“Life’s too short, you know?”
“No worries if not!”
“Gotta get those steps in.”
To conclude this chapter, I’d like to take you through a case study of someone who is well-meaning, eager to have good conversations, and who loves his friends, but who has fully internalized his NPC dialogue options and doesn’t know it yet.
This is the story of Mark. Mark is going out with his friends on a Friday night. He spends the first hour asking them things like “how’s it going?”, “what’s new?”, and “crazy weather, huh?” His friends respond in the way you’d expect.
Mark and his friends get in a taxi to head to a bar. To Mark’s surprise, the taxi driver engages his friends in a lively conversation. His friends laugh, and he realizes for the first time that he’s never heard his friends laugh from their bellies before. He looks at them and sees big smiles on their faces, eyebrows raised in surprise and delight, and spines erect, leaning forward so they don’t miss a single word.
Mark is all of us.
He doesn’t yet have the key to unlocking real conversation, but the taxi driver does. What he doesn’t know is that the taxi driver has read this book, and that the book has equipped him with the skills necessary to engage perfect strangers in totally enthralling conversation.
Mark’s friends each tip the taxi driver $100, and Mark is speechless for the rest of the night.
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Do you ever feel like Mark? Do you often find yourself using the dialogue options listed above?
You’re not alone. And you’re not crazy.
You’re not doomed to be an NPC. The cure is simple, and I’m about to give it to you.
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