On the Same Level
~ 2 Minute Read.
You know how you sometimes meet people who are just “on the same level” as you are? Today I had a super interesting conversation with a collegue of mine and it turned out she has pretty much the same mindset as I have. 1 Additionally she brought up an interesting idea:
With people on your level you can talk for hours, forgetting the time; you “understand each other”.
With people not on your level you don’t get along, you do not feel relaxed around them and don’t “let loose”, don’t allow yourself to be yourself. Especially, if the other person is above your level: you look up to them and forget that they are “just another human beeing”.
I fight against this hierarchy and try to view every human being as “on my level” even if they are that much more successful than I am at the moment—not in a degrading way, I still highly respect their achievements, the level is on a human, friendly basis.
This needs to work in both ways. If you get the other person “down to your level” and hence feel comfortable being yourself around them and the other person “picks you up to their level” (every participant of a conversation can only change their view of the other, hence adapt their perspective which modifies their behaviour), then both can get along in a relaxed and casual way. Which probably leads to you enjoying the conversation way more.
If one part is unable to do this, the entire thing fails: if I am able to get over the overly respectful mentality, but the other doesn’t see me on his level, I will be met with indifference, unnoteworthy. If you are super respectful and up-tight, but the other is trying to make you feel “friend”, that may make you feel more awkward even. In both situations it is still worth trying to provoke the “getting the other on the same level”.
Concluding, I do not know an infalliable way to do so. Maybe body language, but that’s just a wild random though that just appeared out of nowhere.
Written in 25 minutes, edited in 5 minutes.