If you give people the choice between a one-on-one call and a group call with the same five people, most of them will say they prefer the group call. They’ll change their mind after about ten minutes of either, but in the abstract the group sounds better. More energy. More variety. Less pressure on you specifically.
The thing about the group call is that less pressure on you specifically also means less attention to you specifically. In a five-person group call you talk for one fifth of the time, on average. You listen for the other four fifths. If the four fifths is good, the call is great. If the four fifths is mostly two of the other people doing a bit at each other, you’re a spectator at someone else’s thing.
One-on-one calls don’t have that variance. The conversation is between two of you. Whatever happens involves you. If it’s flat that’s on both of you and you both know it; if it’s good you both built it. The attention is symmetric. The stakes are higher, in a small way, which is what makes the good ones feel like they meant something and the bad ones feel like they were a slog.
This is also why one-on-one is the medium for actually getting to know someone. You can’t in a group. There’s no room. You’re always either performing for the room or waiting your turn to perform for the room. The version of someone that comes out in a quiet one-on-one is usually a different person from the one in the group.
XES has both. Random matching defaults to one-on-one because it’s where the medium does its best work. Group rooms are there if you want them — up to eight people, invite-link to your friends — but they’re a different mode for a different thing, mostly playing games together or just hanging.
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