Vibing: an origin story

How one guy, fed up with lame conversations, created a game to kill small talk permanently

I believe that everybody has gold inside of them, that is one good question away from being discovered.

And that's why I hate small talk. My mind has so much inside: the greatest passions, the grandest ideas, and I just can't take another round of the same old boring-ass small talk questions:

“Where are you from?”, ”What do you do for a living?” and “How's business?”

The problem with these questions is that they are digging for data, and don't let any personality gold shine through.

As an American living in Berlin, I had the same conversation a million and a half times. It usually goes exactly like this:

Them: Where are you from?

Me: USA.

Them: But where, where exactly?

Me: Massachusetts.

Them: Boston!? MIT?!?

Me: No. Not Boston. Western Massachusetts, the other part that you've probably never heard of. Springfield, the birthplace of basketball.

Them: Why are you in Berlin?

Me: My startup

Them: OOOOH!

From here I’m wincing because I already know how the rest of the conversation will go. Their logical thinking caps go on, and the game of Shark Tank begins. (Or Lion's Den if you are in the German-speaking world).

Them: What does it do?

Me: Helps citizens participate in democracy.

I'm actually proud of this last part. I wouldn't have bothered making a startup if it weren't for my passionate belief that humans should rule ourselves, rather than the current state of being bossed around by immortal and immoral corporations and the crooked politicians they pay off.

But then, because everybody is an armchair investor “shark”, they start asking me all these bubble-busting questions.

Them: How does it make money?

And this is the part I really get triggered by

Me: It doesn't make money.

Them: It doesn't make money? What do you mean it doesn't make money? Rawr!

And then they proceed to give me copious, unqualified, and unasked-for marketing advice, at the social function.

For the lore, my app was called GloPoll. Spoiler alert, business wasn't going so well, and being forced to disclose this in the first minute of meeting somebody sucked. It made me feel bad at face value, but also made me feel negatively towards the person putting me on the spot like that. Despite making it into the App Store and gaining a modest user base, GloPoll never reached the critical mass required to overhaul democracy on a global scale.

“How’s business?” is a penetrating question that doesn’t belong in casual conversation, because if it’s not going so well, then the person gets to A: lie for appearances (and resent you for it) or B: be reminded of their problems at the social function (and resent you for it).

Over the years, and repeated exposures, I’ve developed an intolerance to lame small talk, penetrating questions, and especially the killer combo of both at the same time.

This particular pain point is why I'm so motivated to kill small talk and replace it with Vibing.

Before we go on, let's define our terms. Vibing is a fun, light-hearted, often non-linear and illogical conversation that merely serves the purpose to elevate the mood or a vibe of a social setting.

Whereas questions like, “how's business?”, don't say much about your personality, a Vibing question would be more like this:

“If you had a pet parrot, what would be the first thing it would learn how to say?”

Now this is actually interesting because it opens a window into the person's personality. It's more personal than, “where are you from?” and it's less penetrating than, "how is your business going?" (Which really boils down to "how secure is your livelihood?").

The sad truth is that most people are just operating on autopilot. They don't put much effort into their conversations, and habits— usually bad ones—take over.

My philosophy in, conversations, dancing, relationships, and life, is to remain intentional. To stay out of autopilot in order to truly enjoy the experience.

To help with this, I created a card game called Vibing, the solution to small talk. It is a series of interesting questions which stimulate personality-driven conversations that bring out and highlight peoples’ playful side, their spicy side, their fun side.

What I’m trying to achieve with Vibing is to start a conversation about better conversations. To help people break bad habits, and replace them with a communication style that facilitates a higher quality of connection.

As we’ve discussed, most people either ask too small of questions, too penetrating questions, or both.

Here’s another Vibing question:

“What is something you wish the opposite sex knew about sex?”

Almost every woman who responds says something about needing more foreplay. People who jump from “where are you from?” To “how’s business going?“ are also jumping straight to penetration. Once you build a connection with somebody, there will come a time for these deeper questions, but let’s just say Vibing is the foreplay.

By the way, if somebody hits you with a lame autopilot question, such as “do you come here often?” and you wish to cheekily call them to a higher standard. I have one magic line which will shake them out of autopilot and reset the conversation:

Say this: “Do you ask that to everybody, or am I just special?” Watch their eyes bulge as they realize the error of their ways.

And still, I look around and see so many great guys who are living suboptimal dating lives because they never learned to vibe.

One fine girl I know told me about how she went on a first date with a guy from a dating app. He was gorgeous. They were literally naked in a sauna together, but he just stuck to the most logical, factual, data-digging questions. No connection was made. He blew his first impression, and didn’t get a chance for a second impression, let alone a second date. Even the best looking guys who get matches on the dating apps, won’t get far if they can’t bring the vibes.

I cringe to recollect how many dates I fumbled in my college years. I was too intellectual for my own good and couldn’t turn it off. I’d literally be laying under the stars by the lake with a smart beautiful girl and then say something off-putting, like about how human population has overshot earth’s carrying capacity. Surprise surprise, the first date was the last date.

Pain is a great teacher, and at the very least I can say I learned my lesson the long way, and made a neat game too that can help other people like younger me improve their vibing game. So now, let’s talk about the origin of Vibing.

HOW IT STARTED

Back in the COVID times, when I was trying to get my moonshot of a startup off the ground, I was also reading a lot of nonfiction. Which makes sense, because you need to have a delusional level of positivity to be okay in such a an unpredictable space as entrepreneurship.

In my learning, I came across Tony Robbins. He said ask better questions to have a better life. Since then, my brain has been primed to fixate on and create my own questions that lead to better conversations.

Here’s what I believe: better conversations equal better connections, better dates, better relationships, better sex, and an overall better life. Vibing arose as way to bring about better conversations.

Over the years I racked up a gigantic list of “non-boring-questions” and the most fun ones went on to become Vibing.

For the record, I still do value penetrating questions, or as I call them Power Questions, but only in the right setting. Take for example this question:

“What do I want my life to look like 90 days from now?”

This is a great question to unpack with a coach or an accountability partner, but these questions only belong where they are welcome, otherwise their light is wasted. To bring these up at a party would be like bringing a bazooka to a water balloon fight.

My collection of Power Questions is already being used privately, and may make a public appearance in the future. If you haven’t already, you’re gonna want to subscribe to this newsletter on substack to be in the know when that happens.

To make this list of Vibing questions into something more real, I wrote down my favorite ones this summer with purple ink on index cards. These were essentially questions I wished somebody would have asked me, instead of the small talk + penetration combo.

I carried them around with me every time I left the house. I relentlessly field-tested the Vibing questions in all kinds of social interactions: one-to-one with old friends, with new friends, icebreakers, dates, group settings, and even networking events where people still benefit from lightening the mood before they get down to business. After all, foreplay is always welcome.

HOW IT’S GOING

And I’m pleased to report, Vibing never misses! It was an absolute hit at every social interaction, making good social settings better, and also turning around situations that were struggling due to too much robot talk.

Then, I curated the most conversation-sparking of these hand-written Vibing questions, and made them into this sexy new prototype for Vibing the card game, designed by Gergana Gergova.

The game has come a long way: from purple pen and paper to its current version. Many have already asked, it is not yet available for sale to the public, but will be coming soon.

You can follow @ViningTheGame on Instagram to get early access to some Vibing questions that elevate your quality of conversations and connections.

Drop a DM if you want to be interviewed for a quick round of Vibing questions to be shared on social media.