The importance of Small Talk

HA! Classic.

I should point out that small talk between friends is completely different than other forms to me. I don't mind small talking to people that I know well. It's the smalltalking with people that I don't care to talk to in the first place, or strangers that I will never meet again that really irks me.

What I resent most about small talk is that in its purest form it serves only to waste time. People who initiate small talk mostly just want to hear themselves speak. That is why I think talking to oneself should be socially acceptable, even encouraged. After all, no one cares what you have to say, and you don't care what anyone else has to say, so why not? If people want to hear themselves, then let 'em. I talk to myself all of the time... and if I may say so.. I find myself quite enchanting.

A REQUEST:


Listen...

...some people are having a cyber election of sorts (for president of A2K)...and I have decided to run for the office.

Apparently it is entirely ceremonial...since Craven owns the site and he is gonna be the big cheese no matter what happens in this cockamamie election.

In any case...it appears some procedural meneuvers are taking place that may (MAY) prevent me from appearing on the ballot. I get the feeling that a minimum number of primary votes will be needed to make the final list of names.

I understand that occasionally I get passionate...and throw some shyt at some of the people to whom I am addressing this request...but, if you ever intend to get elected to anything...you gotta have desire and balls.

And "balls"...I've got in abundance.

So...even if you hate the thought of seeing my avatar in a thread in which you are a participant...I would appreciate you taking time to visit the thread linked below...and casting a vote for my name.

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=50016&start=100


YOU WILL NOT BE VOTING FOR ME...because the election is not even scheduled (as far as I know) yet...and this is like a primary to see who will make it to the final ballot.

You might hold your nose if necessary to do it...with the thought in mind that you could come to the actual election; vote against me; and hope for a humiliating landslide in someone else's favor.

Thank you for at least considering my request.

Shee-it, Frank. President of A2K? What is this stuff all about? I'll pull up your link but I am looking for a reason that a prez is needed. In one paragraph or less...?

I like this thread. I've thought a good deal about small talk, while despising (and engaging in) it all of my life.

Have you ever gone to a party, cast of thousands, you don't know anyone or maybe just a few. You throw out an idle comment to a stranger, or answer one, toss remarks back and forth, and suddenly, the other person says something off the wall, totally hilarious, unexpected. Small talk can have good spin-offs.

Other times, I'll take my drink and hide in the ladies' and meditate until my guy wants to leave.

Maybe small talk is like the grooming that animals engage in. It is comforting, non-challenging, and enforces a feeling of connectedness. It is "kitchen talk," the mindless chatter that one engages in while concentrating on food prep, wishing that the "helper" who is not helping you would go away and let you work on the butter sauce that will not come together.

Small talk can save you from the utter and almost scary seriousness of your deepest thoughts, the ideas and mental wanderings that go from "if there is not a god, what am I doing here, well, I know what I am doing here, I am an insect crawling on the light bulb in some universe-sized room and can be wiped out any second, so what is the purpose of even figuring out the difference between right and wrong. That is a parody of my midnight meanderings but you get the point. Small talk is a welcome diversion from deep-think.

I am such an introvert that I would not interface with people unless brought to sociability by someone else, and I know that is wrong on a certain level. Maybe small talk to meant to level the playing field. Anyone can do it. Einstein can chat with the maid.

Speaking of golf course business talk, the chit-chat of men on the golf course was what drove the feminists nuts and I could see their point. If a golf course bars women, they lose out on the networking that golf games provide to lots of men. So. Life is not fair.

I spent 6 or 7 hours yesterday walking through New York City with EhBeth and Lola.

I was goddam small talked to death.

Anything I have to say aboooot it today, will be tainted.

(Oh, did I mention the small talk with Beth's Canadian accent?)

(Or with Lola's Texas accent?)

Jeez!

By the way Kara...there is absolutely no need for an A2K Pres. But they are having an election anyway.

I ask that you consider the two mainsays of my personal platform:

1) I am the only person running who has no clothes on.

2) If I am elected...it will mightily piss off some people you probably would love to piss off. (Kind of a win/win situation!)


Oh yeah...maybe there's a third: A chicken in every pot. (Or is it some pot in every....er....lemme think about this one!)

I hate small talk.But then again it all depends who Im talking to.

As Fredjones says,smalltalk between friends si different and very welcomed.

Sometimes I can tell someone is just saying 'how are you' just for something to say.
How many people actually want to hear the real response??
I dont mean to be nasty about it.At work companies phone up and complete strangers ask me how I am.I dont know why they ask, and I dont particularly want to tell them so I give the standard reply 'Im fine thanks', I make a point of not asking them how they are.Is that bad?

I find it empty and pointless.I like quality information to be passed between people.

Then again, if im drunk Il talk total rubbish to anyone.

small talk, depending on my mood i either love it or hate it. now and then i get in the mood where i don't want a challenging conversation or to think too deeply, which some people may see as a bad thing, but i just don't believe you need to be that deep all the time, i have never been able to take things THAT seriously. at those times small talk is positively enjoyable and easy, friends, aquaintances, total strangers, whoever, i love it. also small talk is definitely more about body language, tone of voice and inflection than it is about the words said. i like the term "social grooming" as i think it describes it's function perfectly, i've always seen small talk as the human version of purrring, it comforts people and puts them at ease and is useful for bonding and forming good friendships and also leading onto good, deep conversations. i know all this had been said before in this post i just wanted my 2 pence worth here and to stick up for small talk.
on the other hand i admit there's nothing i hate more than someone wittering in my ear about something that doesn't matter to me or anyone else and i would rather enjoy a nice silence.

Jeez, what a grouch.

I guess Beth and Lola had you handcuffed to them so that you couldn't get away?

OK, OK, about the prez thing. If we must have one, it ought to be a guy who is blind to feminine pulchritude and wiles, and it sure looks as if you qualify.

I thought small talk was stupid when I was younger. I had resolved NEVER to ask or answer questions about the weather.

I think silences are vastly underrated.

But, our society (contrasting to societies of I don't know--Tibetans--) has these rules. You are deemed odd or anti-social if you don't small talk.

I think talking about weather for twenty minutes is psychotic. I'm not kidding.

However, since my son has been married, I have labored to develop a relationship with his new wife. I sort of want to talk about things that matter. But, if you're beginning a relationship, that may be too forward.

This is funny.

My son 'took me aside' one day and so sweetly tried to suggest small talk. He said (LOL) I know we don't like that crap in our family. It's stupid. But, her mother can talk about absolutely nothing for hours. You can do it!

I've been trying. I really hate it. It's like some ritualistic chicken slaughtering dance of some other society. It's not about the chicken.

Hey everyone. Kinda windy out today, don't you think?

Well is discussing the weather always meaningless. What if you are planning a trip and you are discussing the whether is this considered small talk? Im not making a statement just stating a thought.

Sometimes it seems small talk can have a relative high meaning

OK, so what IS small talk?

I was wondering that earlier and it's redoubled with Frank's observation. I'm not sure Beth and Lola considered their conversation to be small talk. What is it? Who determines its smallness?

I think small talk is any kind of conversation that one knows in advance won't cause question.

If i tell someone that it is a nice day outside that in my opinion is small talk because i can count on the person agreeing

If i say isn't it great that god gave us this great day, i think that goes beyond small talk because now you have a philosophical argument on your hands. A conversation that will use many examples of other things and use all human resources that either indiviual has learned and must muster up. Theres no thinking behind agreeing the weather is nice

Hmm, I don't think anyone can know in advance whether something will or won't cause question.

Sure they did.

We even identified it as "small talk."

They were giving me lessons in it!

And I did pretty good, too.

Imagine sex without small talk. I think youd ruin the experience if you talked about why people have sex and what determines who it is ok to have sex with. Instead of using small talk and saying you look hot tonight baby.(My seducing tactic)

I don't think seduction is small talk.

<defining...defining...>

Could it be conversation that is meant to soothe someone socially. Or, merely a social performance...?

Ritualistic conversation with no real literal meaning?

Symbolic social assimilation?

Lol - small talk, it appears, is talk that the one commenting on it is not interested in!

I was a small talk fascist as an earnest teeny bopper (except about horses and books, as my non-horsy friends informed me bitterly - I didn't have any friends who did not love books).

I was also a euphemism fascist - (I think I have recounted elsewhere my horrid 14 year old self's passage of arms with the vet's receptionist when I rang to book an ailing, elderly cat in for death - which she insisted on calling being "put to sleep". I would have coped with euthanased - but put to sleep was beyond tolerance. My last comment to her was: "The entire point of the exercise is that pussy never wakes up!")

Anyhoo - I think it common when young to be very intolerant of small talk - but generally we come to realise that it is, indeed, a form of social grooming, and serves a perfectly reasonable purpose.

I use it very consciously at work, to put clients at ease at first meeting - as I imagine many folk in "people industries" do. Interestingly, both myself and the family I am seeing always know mutually exactly when the time has come to get down to business. There are clearly signals passing about when people's anxiety has settled enough for more confronting communication.

If a relationship does not pass beyond small talk - THEN it gets boring, and I wil want to avoid it.

But - I have the sense that a lot of conversational dancing and recreation that I enjoy, Frank would consider very small talk indeed!

I meant to say yesterday... This gave good laugh.

First of all, weather has gotten more interesting to me since I woke up to the environment, so called, and to the world exactly around me. Weather seems a function of many forces I didn't learn about as a child and that interest me now. And weather affects a lot of life, from snowmelt to the lake filling up in a few weeks in front of a friend's house, to moods of folks enduring seemingly incessant winds.

Weather has also gotten more interesting since I've moved from a place I knew well to an entirely different place I didn't just naturally understand, a place that people dream of Hawaii in. The whole town lightens up, moodwise, on a sunlit day.

But, enough on me and weather.

The granules of life are in the small talks at the grocery store and post office, sometimes. I find it easy to seque from small to serious and back again; perhaps it is particular to me or my age range, but I don't think so.
I think it is particular to a kind of openness to having small turn into a bit deeper.

I could make the jump that it is easier to do that for women, but I know men who glide between serious and light as easily, and women who only seem to do light talk in entirety, so, forget that.

An early poster in the thread mentioned relatives asking how school is as a particularly annoying question. Here is a failure of communication. The older relative may really want to know the true answer of how it is for you, if you have the same quagmires and good times and weird experiences he did, or she did. The question is just shorthand for actual interest - sometimes.

My dear male and female friends can all do that segue - I adore it - I love talk that floats, and dives, and turns about, and falls in its own glistening droplet trail.

The talks that stay on one topic in a very Cartesian way have their place, too - for really intense nutting out of things.