Coding Vibes

Imagining better conversation.

For much of my life, ‘vibe’ meant delirium.

A narcosis you slid into at the end of a long night of clubbing. The house lights came up, nobody was ready to go home, and I couldn’t remember where home was anyway.

I checked the newer definition. The one that didn’t involve sticky floors, dark alleys or questionable choices.

Vibe now means a pattern that shapes how you operate. That caught my attention.

What if that idea could help us hold a conversation?

Most exchanges are fleeting, fractured or left floundering. Conversations usually launch on autopilot. We assume clarity will surface. It rarely does. A lot of them stay on autopilot. Some never land.

Vibing would ask - ‘What atmosphere do you want your conversations to live in?’

Everyone carries a vibe into the room, whether they admit it or not. You can hear it in how we pause, challenge or interrupt. You can see it in whether we ask questions or defend positions.

I often get it wrong. My better instincts are slow thinking, forensic questions and low tolerance for fluff. Naming these tendencies means I use them deliberately rather than leak them by accident.

The atmosphere is the space people feel when they talk to you.

I want mine to be steady and uncompetitive. Hold the scepticism, genuine curiosity, and enough pause for thought. Cut the noise, listen for patterns, and say only what adds clarity.

Yours might lean warm, sharp, funny, restrained or provocative. A good vibe knows when to slow a conversation down and when to speed it up.

Both are perfect, and many others too.

We talk endlessly about communication skills and emotional intelligence, yet rarely about the atmosphere we bring with us. It might just help us reclaim depth, meaning and presence in an age of bewildering noise.

What’s your vibe?