“Are you spiritual?” an over-enthusiastic club member asked me Monday night as I left my own club meeting — which in his defense, I am also probably over-enthusiastic about. I took one headphone out (because it’s Boston and everyone has a soundtrack for going anywhere) and managed to gargle out a “what?”
“Are you spiritual?” he asked again, this time more excitedly. I stopped for a second, taken aback by the question. I obviously was not about to go into my nuanced relationship with church attendance or my distaste for the word “spiritual.” I said whatever I needed to exit the conversation as quickly as possible, but I still felt bad about the entire interaction. This was partially because I never want to reject someone’s earnest attempt at being a nice, campaigning person, but more importantly because he skipped all the rules on how to have a conversation with someone. The hick inside of me thought something along the lines of “what in God’s name did you just say to me?”
While I understand grassroots campaigning for a club can be difficult and confusing, this guy went straight for the gut and skipped the small talk. Ah yes, small talk, the bane of every “edgy” person’s existence. Small talk is the worst thing that has ever happened to this intelligent, moody and supposedly interesting person. Hating small talk is the unifying factor of manic-pixie-dream-whatevers everywhere. But if we don’t use small talk, how do we expect the conversation to go?
“Hey Tabitha, how are you today?” I ask.
“Well, I am horribly concerned that I caused my parents’ divorce!” Tabitha responds sitting in an all black outfit, smoking American Spirits.
Horrible hipster stereotypes aside, disregarding small talk leads to awkward interactions like mine with the aforementioned club member. You have to get to know someone before asking him or her or them incredibly personal questions. The best way to do that? Small talk.
A lot of people have problems with small talk because it does not seem genuine. “Conversation for conversation’s sake” sounds like a phone call from an adult in a Charlie Brown special. However, you can utilize small talk to develop relationships or make someone smile. You can’t live life through one-headphone-in utilitarian conversations that only serve a purpose — you need a little small talk in your life.
Small talk itself is a fine art, and if you are good at it, you can usually have a fun conversation (someone tell Jess on “Gilmore Girls”— wait until he gets a hold of this!) I’m not saying there are Victorian rules you must follow when entering a conversation with someone. I am saying that with practice, you learn how to ask questions. You learn how to stay away from topics like the weather. And if it does come up, the conversation doesn’t die out. You also get to learn things about people, even if they’re only people you meet in passing. You learn how to be an active and compassionate listener. In fact, listening, and I mean truly listening, will make you a better conversationalist in general.
Small talk is a great social tool and an easy way to identify a friend.
Some of my most spirited and hilarious conversations have come from small talk — you start with something mundane, crack a few jokes and your conversational partner cracks a few more. You both look at each other and think, “wow this is so much fun, that joke was so funny, I like you!” Now you suddenly have a new friend with a secret handshake and a clubhouse with a password.
Small talk allows us to interact without the social pressure of being profound. Not everything you say has to be a TED Talk. Small talk creates a safe space to get to know someone before you talk about the Big Things, like politics or favorite brand of gummy worms (this is a hot button issue, okay?).
Maybe I just come from a long line of conversational entertainers. I watched my dad make after-school babysitters and dry-cleaning attendants laugh for years before I knew what small talk was. Even now, I’m still amazed at his abilities. He always finds a way to delight someone within his two-minute interaction with them, even if it’s just a genuine, “How are you doing today?” He builds little relationships with everyone he interacts with, even if they do just smile and think, “There goes that crazy old man.” And who wouldn’t want that? Just to make someone’s day incrementally better by asking a question, making a slightly off comment about the world around us — by being a pleasant person. Small talk might be small, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a big deal.
