Amber Ramble: How to converse with your friends in the morning (when they hate mornings)

Step 1: Keep your voice low
If your friends aren’t fans of being awake in the mornings, odds are that they aren’t ready to be assaulted with loud noises yet. While you might want to share your excitement for the new day ahead, it might be best to speak in quieter tones, while not expecting your friends to uphold brilliant conversations. If your friends makes no effort to reciprocate a conversation, then they have probably already fallen back asleep or are trying their best to escape consciousness. Give them this small victory and let them be.

Step 2: Resist being too positive about the day ahead
If your friends are true detesters of the morning hours, they most likely aren’t ready to a have a positive attitude until after 9:30 at least. While you might think being positive will help them to also feel good about the morning, your positive attitude and their negative attitude more likely share an inverse relationship. The more positivity you express, the more pessimistic about the morning your friend may become. If you want to bridge the gap dividing you and your friends, adopt a false attitude of pessimism in your friend’s behalf, if only for an hour. Having a companion who is equally unexcited about the new day helps make the transition from half-consciousness to fully awake a bit easier.

Step 3: Companionable Silence
When all else fails, pure silence is the go-to method to approaching your anti-morning friends. While you may be excited to talk with them on this brand new day, most likely you will end up disappointed by their dismal conversation abilities in the morning. Instead of getting your hopes up, just enjoy the transition period from newly-awake to awake-and-ready in companionable silence. A simple (soft-toned) “good morning” and then a return to your own morning routine will suffice. You can make up with the silence endured in the morning with a longer and more in-depth conversation at lunch.