The best people to talk to aren’t the funniest. They’re the ones who ask the second question.

The first question is manners. The second one proves you listened to the answer and wanted more of it, and that is the moment a conversation stops being a formality. Funny people are good company, but humour performs while curiosity includes. Most of us can count on one hand the people who reliably ask us anything twice.

Try it today: whatever someone tells you, build your next question out of a detail they just handed you instead of changing subject. How did that go, and what was that like, will do most of the work. Watch how much longer they stay.