What are your conversational tricks and pet peeves?

I love conversation; some are serious, some are fun, some can be expressive, some can be more contained.

You can use your voice in so many different ways; loud or quiet, slow or fast, lower pitch ir higher pitch, changing the rhythm, and leaving silences.

Nothing beats a good conversation in full flow.

That said, many people struggle with keeping a conversation going, or it just never quite *feels* right.

So what are your conversational tricks to keep a conversation in good flow, or pet peeves which ruin a conversation for you?

For me, I like to play with speaking speed to "run and then slow" to emphasise a point. However, I really struggle if my conversational partner can't implicitly understand the nuance of a conversation - overexplaining ruins the flow, personally.