Do people in relationships actually talk about useless shit all day??
We definitely do a lot of gossip.
Okay, so here’s the thing. My wife and I have been doing this to each other for nearly 20 years. She’s a philosophy major. I’m a math major. This was probably one of our first big arguments. Any time either one of us stumble on a proof or a study or a tangential bit of theory or semi-relevant meme, we will immediately reignite the struggle session over free-will for the rest of the week.
Seems silly to exert so much effort over something that clearly can’t exist?
I hate small talk, vehemently opposed to it… been married over 15 years…
When it is someone you truly love and cherish… even the most mundane things come with a sense of beauty and wonder, because it’s them. Their thoughts, their opinions, their take on whatever applies the meaning. My wife and I can talk about the rain and the trees and the bugs and the birds for hours, for no other reason than it gives us a chance to be together.
Looking at it the way the post does… you’re missing the forest because of all the trees.
I love the talks with my life partner about the inner depth of the universe and the emptiness beyond. I hate when he doesn’t listen to me about something that I know is a good insight. I also hate when he outright shows coldness. I do that sometimes. I understand we are so good for each other for we are good archetypes that fit together. He doesn’t do small talk sometimes, and he lies about the stupidest things to cut small talk to nothing. But I love him. He’s special, and I’m just happy someone understands my crazy so well.
Now God threatens me with how they ALL, including my life partner set me up. I’m not good enough for anything. What? Grandma? She’s ded
So, you think true will exists or what?
I hope so, I’m getting sick of meeting all these fake Wills
Talking random bullshit with someone you know well is great, performative socially masked pleasantries specifically chosen for their generality, and uncontroversial nature is immensely draining emotionally and mentally.
Dragging my tongue over ice-cold saccharine cream tainted by biter cacao seeds as grainy bits of sand dig into my exposed flesh and the roar of the ocean assaults my tender eardrums.
Every moment at the beach is unspeakable anguish.
Saying talking to the cashier is “… immensely draining emotionally and mentally” is some seriously high drama.
The world really isn’t that hard to deal with. Most people are actually quite kind. Not me of course, but most people.
I don’t count being polite in public small talk, I mean things like being at a party where you don’t know anybody, work events, ceremonial events, those kinds of small, short hells.
You’re missing an opportunity to be irritating for your own entertainment. Don’t let these go by!
It’s really hard for me to meet people when it’s like “what do you do” and I answer and they say “how is that” and I answer and then they ask where I’m from and then say it’s rainy.
I don’t think people hate small talk so much as they hate it when people are bad at small talk. A lot of awkward people will barrage you with questions and you don’t even get the opportunity to ask them the question back because they just keep peppering you.
Asking my life partner how their day was is not small talk. Asking the same question from the cashier at the grocery checkout is small talk.
What if they are the same person?
It averages out to medium talk.
I’m not a scientist, but I don’t think that’s right.
If there’s someone behind you, that’s called “holding up the line.”
Then you shouldn’t be buying groceries to begin with, they should be getting them with their employee discount.
They’re both small talk, you’re just calling the scenarios you don’t like doing it small talk and the ones you don’t mind doing it something else.
OP and all your down votes are from morons. Don’t fret
I sort of expected it might be the case. People who say they dislike small talk are really weirdly adamant about it.
I would say that small talk is when you ask questions you don’t actually care to know the answers to, just to fill the silence. “Did you catch the game last night?” is small talk if I’m talking to my coworker whose name I don’t even remember, but it’s not small talk when I’m talking to my friend who I know has been invested in the season, and whose opinion I actually want to know.
It’s small talk both times, you just don’t like forced conversation with your coworker. And that’s fine, but they’re both small talk. And no, I strongly disagree that it’s defined as answers you don’t care about the answer to. Many people who describe themselves as enjoying small talk do care about the answers, or else they wouldn’t be asking them or they’d be asking something else.
I don’t know why people have defined small talk as some exclusively negative thing. It’d be like someone saying riding a bike isn’t exercising because it’s fun.
I don’t believe that small talk must be exclusively negative just because you don’t care about the answers. I don’t think anyone can honestly claim that people ask things like “crazy weather we’re having, huh?” because they genuinely want to know if you agree about the weather. They just like talking. They like hearing themselves and others make noise. Nothing wrong with that, but I think it’s telling when the people I know who enjoy small talk rarely remember the things I said last time we engaged in small talk - they don’t care about the answers, so they don’t remember them. Again, nothing wrong with just enjoying passing the time with meaningless chatter, but I certainly believe that it is indeed the meaninglessness that defines whether it’s small talk or not.
There’s a clear issue in how people define the phrase, and it’s easy to understand why when I look up the definition and the Merriam-Webster defines it as “light or casual conversation” with the synonym of “chitchat” but the Cambridge dictionary specifically says that it’s “conversations about things that are not important, often between people who do not know each other well.”
Those are two very distinct views on the concept (with the second having a rather…negative connotation to it, in my opinion), and I think it gets even further muddled by one very simple thing that I think is the real root of the argument: whether someone is an introvert or an extrovert. And I’m not talking about the “introvert=shy” that has pervaded common culture, but the actual psychological definition of the two which is about how people use and recharge mental/emotional energy. Extroverts are energized by social interaction, regardless of whether they’re shy or not, while introverts are exhausted by it. So introverts naturally have a more transactional relationship with social interaction because they have to. If they didn’t, they’d emotionally and mentally burn out. So to an introvert, any social interaction has to be weighed against how much mental and emotional energy they’re willing to invest into it, and cultural formalities with people you don’t know or care about to simply fill periods of silence with human noise would therefore fall very far down the list of things that they want to do. Whereas an extrovert, for whom basically any conversation could be like water to a parched plant, would delight at pretty much any chance to engage any random person.
So what we really have in this thread is introverts saying that they’d rather spend their limited daily emotional labor on the people they love than random strangers and extroverts mystified by the concept that anybody would balk at the opportunity for stimulating conversation.
I’ll muddy the waters further by saying I’m an introvert (and not in the shy way, the same way you describe it) but still define it as light conversation, not unimportant conversation I don’t care about the answers to.
That helps explain why it feels divided though, thanks for sharing the actual definitions.
People who don’t know each other well almost exclusively talk about things that don’t matter, I don’t see how that’s negative at all. Also this whole introvert/extrovert dichotomy is a massive oversimplification of how people behave and interact. I legitimately don’t fit in either of your descriptions, so I know for a fact they don’t cover all the bases. As far as I can tell, I’m just a vert. I lose energy by expending it and I gain energy by comsuming it. Also sleep and sunlight help.
I didn’t say anything about not liking either of these. The two scenarios are qualitatively different. The purpose of the one at home is to learn what happened that day, how the other person feels about it, planning what we do with the rest of our day, and so on. It’s an exchange of information.
The purpose of asking the cashier about their day is not to actually learn what happened with them (unless you actually know the person of course). It is exchanging pleasantries or just making banter, without the intent of exchanging any information that matters to the other person. I don’t dislike it. But it’s not a conversation, it’s small talk.
I read your top level comment as well and you do seem really irked that some people differentiate small talk from conversation. It seems like you’re fighting windmills though, and it’s in fact you who for some reason has strong feelings about the topic.
Small talk is an important part of interpersonal communication, and it’s good when it creates a sense of comfort, belonging, or serves as the prelude for a deeper conversation. But it can be annoying if it’s self serving, because either it fails creating any positive feelings, or it never gets past the warmup phase. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with people who don’t enjoy small talk, or with those who do.I guess my gripe is the examples people give, like if you really don’t care, why ask? And I don’t mean the standard “hi how are you fine thanks you fine” dance, I mean why ask a cashier how their day is going if you don’t care? If you want to talk to them, why wouldn’t you ask them something you actually do care about? There are plenty of ways to conversate, break ice, fill a silence (if people feel so obligated) that don’t involve asking questions that they don’t care about, so why ask the ones they don’t care about and then complain about the process? “Omg, I asked the cashier about the weather, but I hate talking about the weather and it sucked.” Then ask about something you do want to talk about if you want to talk? It’s not like it’s impossible.
Because it’s polite, we live in a society
I never said not to though, lmao, I said to pick something you actually want to talk about.
I never said you said not to, LOL
If you really don’t care, why ask?
That’s the question I answered, it’s in the very first sentence of the comment I responded to.
Then ask about something you do want to talk about if you want to talk? It’s not like it’s impossible.
People think that “i hate small talk” must mean “i want big talk” because they cannot comprehend the idea of just shutting tf up
These thoughts rattling around in my head and this breath in my lungs would be wasted forever unless I combine them and thrust it upon your unwilling ears
—the entire world for some reason
Sorry, I’m quieter when I take my Ritalin!
Yeah I can’t imagine the alternative. A life where you and your partner aren’t comfortable in silence sounds like a nightmare.
Not always true and a little besides the point. I went through a period where my friend circle ONLY made small talk. Hang out for a couple hours at a bar, 90% no talking and when we did it was either to insult each other or talk about our beers.
It became exhausting. Unsurprisingly we went our separate ways and never contacted each other again.
What the duck are you taking about Joey?!?
Truth!
“Hi honey, i’m home”.
Again. Awesome. Truly never gets old. Can’t wait to do this shit for the rest of my fucking life.
How was your day?
“Acknowledged, hun.”
I don’t mind having a conversation about stupid bullshit, I love those. But I do hate having a superficial conversation filled with lies and obfuscation about meaningless topics neither of us care about solely for the sake of filling the silence. It’s a waste of energy and time.
Then bring your A game to every conversation. Most people are interesting, they just need steering towards their subject of interest.
I think you have to be pretty open to new things for this to be true, a lot of people will shut down and think certain topics are boring, art for example. You kind of have to force yourself to find those things interesting for a while before everything seems interesting.
I don’t know my experience is everything is interesting if someone is passionate about it. It’s mostly my fault when I’m only waiting for my turn to talk. (Mostly the reason is I’m forgetful and if I think I have something good to add I’m afraid I’ll forget it)
I think it’s sort of a two-way street, people feel a lot more passionate sharing something if the other person shows real interest in it. Being the person who makes them want to talk about it is more a skill I had to learn :p
Oh my sweet summer sunshine. It’s not other people’s jobs to do your emotional labor for you.
You’re kinda confirming my pet theory that the “I don’t do small talk” people are all cunts
Oh, they are. The lot of them have given up on building any useful social skills whatsoever and kind of resent you for even asking them to.
They’re like Cloud when Aerith has to teach him what a high five is. Except Cloud actually wants to learn.
Some people make it into a personality trait, definitely.
No, they’re introverts and therefore have to weigh every social interaction with how much of their emotional labor/mental energy they want to spend on it.
Think of it this way: as an introvert, you start the day with 10 spoons. Every time you talk to someone, you lose a spoon. How many spoons are you willing to give up to Frank and his play by play on what your other coworker is doing right now (you know, the coworker that’s also sitting next to you both)? Maybe you’d rather use those spoons on playing with your kids.
In this nonsense scenario, extroverts start the day with 0 spoons but generate a spoon whenever they socially interact because extroverts regain emotional/mental energy through social interaction. In theory, you could game the system by having two extroverts talk to each other every moment of the day to create infinite spoons and start your own silverware company.
I’m in the “no small talk” camp. I at least try to not be a cunt at first. But I have no problems firing back.
I imagine many people in the group though just really don’t want to be bothered and being sharp with someone is usually a fast way to end that bother. They may not be cunts on the regular, they may just not want to be involved with the other person.
I agree that the other person was being cunty though. That condescending “sweet summer w/e” shit is rude af unless it’s done to be silly.
Nobody’s expecting you to. But I’d fell like you’re missing out on the human experience.
Yes. Works for me.
We’re both autistic and therefore both hate small talk. Problem solved.
That’s what normies don’t get about introverts: we’re not above small talk, we’re above small talk when it’s all there is. Of course we’ll ask the loved one how their day has been, and the fact is we’ll actually shut the fuck up and listen to it all, and when things become serious we’ll talk to say meaningful things.
Else, there’s folie à deux echolalia, shitty jokes, movie lines, comfortable silence, or skipping it all to ‘scorching hot sex’.
I’m all for small talk. It’s the superfluous small talk just to kill dead air I hate. I’d rather sit in an elevator and say nothing than talk about how much rain we’re about to get this afternoon.
Thats insert x location weather for ya’! don’t like it, Just wait five minutes! *proceeds to slap knee’
Yeah, I mean don’t ask me how I’m doing if you don’t want to hear the answer. Don’t look at me weird when I say “not great” if you’re the one who asked!
I’m not obliged to say “Great, thanks!” when you ask me how I am. I’m not doing great, and I’m not gonna lie about it just to make you feel better about a question that you asked!
That’s what I mean when I say I hate smalltalk. It’s so insincere, and exhausting to carry on day-to-day with no deeper conversation.
No I’m sorry, interiority cannot be tolerated or respected. You’re doing it wrong.
My bf and I barely talk at all. It’s fucking awesome just being comfortable shutting the fuck up together.
#goals
You mean you don’t have someone constantly at their/your wits’ end… telling you that you’re either the cause of , or lack of the cause of everything?
Thought I was just old fashioned… LOVE…
Nah; I split with my abusive af wife years ago.
Me and my gf are the same. If course we have lots of meaningful and not so meaningful conversations. But we can also spend days barely talking, just doing our own thing. But together. I love it!
hi honey I’m home
well, looks like rain tonight
you said it
Peak romance ❤️
Some people are just scared of silence I guess.
Talking To my partner isn’t small talk. Sustaining a conversation with a coworker who won’t shut the fuck up is small talk
It doesn’t become small talk just because you don’t like it, it’s still small talk.
