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January 05, 2007
Small Talk
But honestly, small talk is like sliding down a cliff of sheetglass, desperately reaching for a crag or niche to grab. Give the other person some purchase, an opinion to disagree with, a piece of gossip, some critical thought to evaluate, an emotion to share. Offer something genuine, with some heft.
I find small talk excruciating, all the more so because its rhythmic, deadening script offers so little room for escape into more interesting topics. Trapped in pleasantries, I'll spend most of my mental energy trying to figure out how the conversation can hook into something more dense and enjoyable, and often remain incapable of getting it there. Which is odd, because I have lots of opinions on controversial, upsetting, conversation-worthy things. But you can't follow up, "yes, I like my job," with "how do you feel about armed revolution leading towards a classless, socialist utopia?" So I love Megan's description of small talk: "Like sliding down a cliff of sheetglass, desperately reaching for a crag or niche." That's exactly how it feels.
January 5, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
small talk is what people do because they are too afraid to be honest. once you cease to care, you stop doing small talk.
Posted by: akaison | Jan 5, 2007 12:44:13 PM
"how do you feel about armed revolution leading towards a classless, socialist utopia"
I like it.
(Intended as a comment on smalltalk, which includes the post)
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Jan 5, 2007 12:57:05 PM
But Ezra, it's so unseasonably warm out. What's up with that?
Posted by: Jeff | Jan 5, 2007 1:00:06 PM
Real intellectuals can't be bothered to engage in common chit-chat & gossip of regular mortals.
Posted by: DRR | Jan 5, 2007 1:15:08 PM
Not everyone shares that feeling when they are engaging in small talk. I know people who only ever engage in small talk - with their family, friends, etc. They must not feel that desperation that I feel, which Megan described perfectly, otherwise they would never speak at all.
Posted by: maurinsky | Jan 5, 2007 1:17:35 PM
Lots and LOTS of people I know feel this way. The strangest thing about it to me is that there seems to be some strange taboo around turning the conversation to anything serious or substantive. It feels vaguely rude. But why? Virtually no one I know enjoys empty chit chat. So why can't we just collectively agree that it's ok to dive into other things?
Posted by: Realish | Jan 5, 2007 1:20:21 PM
I get this a lot around my family and my wife's family.
"How is your day?"
"Good, except for the Republicans doing X,Y,Z."
followed by blank look.
Posted by: Robert P. | Jan 5, 2007 1:33:38 PM
I heard a recent story on NPR about James Brown (RIP) wherein the correspondent described his meeting with James Brown backstage at a Siegfried and Roy show. Stuck in small talk, JB exclamatorily asked this man's friend "What do you think of science?"
The friend, stunned, had no immediate response, whereupon Mr. Brown exclaimed "Well, when you think of something, write me a letter!" and went on to other topics.
If I could keep a straight face, I would surely add "What do you think of science" to my small talk toolbox.
Posted by: luedtke | Jan 5, 2007 1:42:58 PM
When someone asks "How are you?" always answer negatively. Inevitably they ask why, and there is your in. I do it all the time. Works like a charm.
Posted by: skewter | Jan 5, 2007 1:49:50 PM
Did you ever see the hilarious Star Trek: Next Gen episode in which Data is trying to learn how to engage in small talk? It's definitely worth a look.
Posted by: Rebecca Allen, PhD, ARNP | Jan 5, 2007 1:52:20 PM
My impression is that people that don't like small talk generally don't like people very much. I am included in both categories. Of course, we all like a select group of people, be people in general, not so much.
Others, including some of my reletives, who generally like people very much enjoy small talk, they both enjoy and care about the trivialities in other peoples lives. I sometimes suspect that that makes them better people then I am.
Posted by: Dave Justus | Jan 5, 2007 2:09:32 PM
Every great once in a while, I'll meet someone who is also self-aware about small talk, and the two of us will get into a mutual game of extending the small talk for as long as possible with as many inanities as we can think of. That's a fun use of small talk.
Posted by: Megan | Jan 5, 2007 2:11:00 PM
Seems like the art of conversation is going by the wayside. A good conversation can start in "small talk" and progress in all sorts of directions. But it is an activity that requires actively listening to what the other person is saying, not just waiting to pounce with your own witty statement.
Posted by: CParis | Jan 5, 2007 2:13:18 PM
An insistence of authenticity comes with a price. Without small-talk (a widely recognized stock of "safe topics"), it would be impossible for strangers to engage each other in conversation. The availability of these topics is what permits people from different backgrounds to converse without risk. Without them, you'd never be able to talk to that guy you see every morning at the bus-stop. Small-talk is good for the public sphere; it's the channel through which people from different backgrounds get to meet each other.
Posted by: Julian | Jan 5, 2007 2:14:08 PM
small talk is exhausting.
i prefer silence to transparent conversations.
Posted by: jacqueline | Jan 5, 2007 2:53:43 PM
Agree with what CParis and what Julian said. I hate endless small talk, but can be offended if someone immediately upon introduction wants to know my deep thoughts on the Brazillian ecosystem. I think small talk for me is useful in gauging the others persons interests and whether it's worth it to even engage speaking on more expansive topics. Going into conversations guns blazing usually tells me how self-centered that person is, or how insecure they may be by needing to express opinions ad nauseum, when perhaps I don't care about their opinion to the extent that they do.
Posted by: kdub | Jan 5, 2007 3:09:00 PM
I'm going to speak in favor of small talk. Small talk is to insignificant talk as individuals are to worthless interchangeable commodified units of mass blocs. If your philosophy encourages the idea that individuals have merit, then there's something to be said for the idea that low-keyed conversation about topics on the peersonal level can be worthwhile too. People don't just have doctrines; they have memories, emotions, and aesthetics, along with a lot else, and this is all fodder for small talk - what we're listening to and liking, what we're reading for the first time or re-reading and how old favorite comfort-food reading seems long after first encounter, good luck and bad in trying new stores, you name it.
Far too many of the world's decisions are already made by people who don't understand other human beings or care about this. Most of us here would agree on the perils of the inhuman detachment of a Bush or Cheney. For fuck's sake, why do you want to be like that? But if you want to actually understand people, you have to, well, talk to them, and listen to them. Many of us are prone to rant about the perils of the punditariat's isolation...and then some of you are here making a positive virtue of your own alienation. It'd be one thing if you professed outright not to care about quality of life, the variety of experience, unexpected needs and wants, the potential for sound inspiration and leadership talent to turn up outside the existing elites, and all that. But most of you claim to have some respecct for others' lives. Well and good. But then why should anyone else in the world have any respect for your assertion, if it turns out to only be about theories and aggegrates?
In addition to learning a lot and often having unexpected fun making small talk with the people I deal with, I find that it has a measurable effect on my chronic depression and immune problems - about a 25% reduction in the quantity of medications I need in a week when I can spend at least three hours in low-keyed conversation with folks out and around town. (It's only 10% or so reduction when I get out without the small talk.) I speculate that the effort of syncing with someone else's mental rhythm helps kick me out of the kind of self-feeding groove so common in depression.
But what it really comes down to is that I keep having a good time and learning interesting things through the low-key exchanges about this and that. My life's better off for having made the effort to cultivate the skills it takes.
Posted by: Bruce Baugh | Jan 5, 2007 3:19:29 PM
PS: My thoughts on the feasibility of armed revolution leading to a classless socialist utopia are very strongly shaped by what I know of the current experience of the people around me, which I've learned a lot about via, yes, the demonized small talk. I suspect that someone who cannot comfortably engage in casual conversation with strangers is likely to have grossly erroneous views about likely outcomes of radical political change, in very much the way that someone who cannot speak a country's languages is unlikely to fully understand its people.
Posted by: Bruce Baugh | Jan 5, 2007 3:23:17 PM
Yeah, small talk is like sex. Just the same tired things, over and over and over.
Posted by: idlemind | Jan 5, 2007 3:27:58 PM
Dammit, Idlemind, I wish I'd thought of that. Well, I can swipe it and claim it later. :)
Posted by: Bruce Baugh | Jan 5, 2007 3:28:53 PM
I think DRR, Dave and Bruce hit on a key point in different ways. Small talk can be "small" either because one or both people don't really want to communicate at all, so no interest is generated, or because one or both find the topics insignificant and thus dull. In some cases the latter, and sometimes even the former, can be overcome by just taking a genuine interest in whatever it is the other person wants to talk about, or you can get them to talk about. Their kids, their job, whatever. It can be its own interesting world if you want to go there. Wanting to go there is related to liking people in their ordinary lives. It's not as painful as it might seem. Of course, sometimes people really aren't going to engage you, or me at least, no matter what, and that's dull, dull, dull.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jan 5, 2007 3:31:06 PM
for a few years, there was a bumper sticker in southern california that read something like this:
"life is great, business is fantastic and my children are terrific."
....there is a lot of small talk that has that kind of insincerity to it. a facade.it reminds me of the christmas card letters that i sometimes receive which are a kind of small talk...a litany of remarkable and wondrous accomplishments that have happened to this person. a kind of talking "at" someone, rather than "to" them...
...i have been at parties where people have engaged in small talk and were looking beyond me, stopped in the middle of a sentence to greet another person....
the level of disinterest or superficiality can feel very diminishing.
.....on the other hand, there are genuine, gentle, warm and comforting interactions that occur with neighbors, co-workers or friendly strangers that do not feel transparent or superficial. there is a warmly genuine quality to them..very often just a thoughtful smile with a straightforward and caring gaze, or a word of affirmation or a curious and interested question, and it is shared in kind.
i dont think of that as small talk.
i think of that as real and meaningful talk...
i never think that "real talk" needs to come from the mind...it just needs to come from the heart.
it means someone is "really listening", if even for a moment, and we are "really listening" and there is an exchange that may be very brief, but is very heartening,just like a warm smile.
Posted by: jacqueline | Jan 5, 2007 4:04:52 PM
"I find small talk excruciating, all the more so because its rhythmic, deadening script offers so little room for escape into more interesting topics."
Ahhh, it's just a skill like any other. The easiest method is to ask open-ended questions to the other person, nod feigning interest. Most people love talking about themselves (I personally hate it) so you can trundle along for 10-15 minutes with minimal mental effort until an opening comes up which might actually result in an interesting conversation topic.
And, Ezra, as a future DC mover and shaker, you've got to learn the art of name-dropping.
Posted by: No Longer a Urinated State of America | Jan 5, 2007 4:13:06 PM
Truthfully, I enjoy smalltalk because I get to find out what kind of jobs people have, how they ended up where they are, how the person is socially or professionally connected to the event we're both at, etc. Maybe I just like to hear people tell stories.
I think part of learning to do smalltalk correctly is figuring out what you would enjoy learning from such an interaction. For me, that involves figuring out how people are socially connected to one another and, since I'm new to DC, finding out what people do around here for fun or what interesting things are going on around here. Also, I'm quite good on homing in on what sort of mutual interests I might have with people I meet in such casual social settings (though one such interaction, involving the discussion of a book that had recently come out, left the person I was speaking with (mistakenly) convinced that I had been a former patient at McLean's psychiatric hospital, since I seemed so familiar with details of the place).
Posted by: Constantine | Jan 5, 2007 4:20:41 PM
Small talk is how you build the intimacy to have big talk.
Posted by: cathy | Jan 5, 2007 4:26:01 PM
