What to Do If You Hate Small Talk (Part 1)
English —
Unit 51
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| 0s | A lot of discomfort about going to social engagements is rooted in what can sound like |
| 5s | a rather high-minded concern: a hatred of small talk. We can develop a dread of parties |
| 13s | because we know how likely we are to end up wedged into conversations about the weather, |
| 18s | parking, traffic or the way we plan to spend the forthcoming holidays – when there would |
| 22s | be so many deeper and more dignified topics to address: the future of humanity, the fate |
| 28s | of the nation, or the melancholy state of our hearts. We resent parties for holding |
| 34s | up an ideal of community and dialogue while trapping us in unproductive and insincere |
| 40s | banter; for making us more lonely than we ever would be in our own homes. But we are |
| 46s | perhaps misunderstanding what small talk is for and how we might gently find an exit from |
| 54s | its more airless corners. Small talk exists for a noble reason: it is designed to prevent |
| 61s | hurt. It provides us with a rich source of information so that we can safely ascertain |
| 67s | the frame of mind of our interlocutor – and therefore gauge what more in-depth topics |
| 72s | of conversation might safely be broached. The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer |
| 77s | once darkly reminded us that we should always remember, when meeting new people, that they |
| 82s | might be only be a few steps away from wanting to grab a weapon and end their own lives. |
| 88s | A few moments of small talk give us the signals we need to find out who we have on our hands; |
| 95s | it lends us time to circle intimacy from on high before determining where we might wish |
| 100s | to land. |
| 102s | Furthermore, a rigid hatred of small talk overlooks that it isn’t ever the subject |
| 106s | matter per se that determines the profundity of a conversation. There are ways of talking |
| 112s | about death that are trivial and ways of addressing the weather that feel significant. A truly |
| 118s | deep mind can exercise itself as much on the game of a child as on the puzzles of philosophy |
| 123s | – and it is unfortunate snobbery to |
| 126s | discount a topic merely because it has never featured in erudite academic curricula. We |
| 131s | should take inspiration from how many great artists have based their work around what |
| 136s | were, at heart, versions of ‘small talk’. In the early 1820s, the English artist John |
| 142s | Constable painted fifty studies of the clouds above Hampstead Heath in London, finding extraordinary |
| 148s | beauty and complexity in the ever-changing quiet aerial drama above him. |
| 153s | John Constable, Cloud Study With no less open-mindedness, at the end of the nineteenth century, the |
| 157s | French artist Paul Cézanne paid close attention to the varied beauty of apples, painting dozens |
| 163s | of studies of these modest snacks laid out in bowls and on sideboards. Paul Cézanne, |
| 167s | Still Life with Seven Apples Buddhism teaches us that, to those gifted enough to see properly, |
| 172s | the whole world can be found in a single grain of sand. We should perceive no insult in a |
| 179s | call to glimpse the grandest themes through the lens of small talk. The skilled conversationalist |
| 186s | doesn’t insist that atmospheric or traffic conditions or where a person has been at the |
| 191s | seaside are inherently unworthy of discussion. They know that what a person feels about a |
| 196s | cloudy afternoon might be a highway to their soul or that their experiences around parking |
| 202s | might provide clues as to their attitudes to authority or their relations with their |
| 207s | parents. They are not put off by having to work with humble matter; they are deft enough |
| 212s | to use whatever is to hand. The fear of small talk reflects a worry, hugely understandable |
| 220s | and with roots in childhood experience, that we will be unable to influence the flow of |
| 225s | a conversation by ourselves, that we will be the victims of the obsession or pettiness |
| 230s | of others – and that conversation is fundamentally a natural, organic occurrence which happens |
| 236s | to us but cannot be created by us; it may at points be very engaging, at others hugely |
| 244s | frustrating; but the outcome is not ours to determine. We can feel that when a person |
| 250s | says something, we must invariably respond in a similar way: an anecdote about a golf |
| 255s | tournament needs to be followed by another; if someone has a story about a booking confusion |
| 260s | at a hotel, the other must chip in with a corollary. But, in truth, we have far more |
| 266s | conversational agency than this implies; it is almost always in our power to raise more |
| 272s | intimate or profound follow-up questions. And we can do so with the confidence that |
| 277s | few of us are ever committed to remaining on the surface; we just don’t know how to |
| 282s | descend to the depths. An individual who is currently talking at puzzling length about |
| 287s | an airline meal has also inevitably been disappointed in love, had bouts of despair, tried to make |
| 294s | sense of a difficult parent, felt confused about their direction – and will be longing, |
| 298s | at some level, therefore to stop talking about cheese crackers and share the contents of |
| 304s | their heart. The confident conversationalist does not take fright at small talk and others’ |
| 310s | occasional apparently firm attachment to it. They know that the small themes need only |
| 317s | ever be the first, understandable and never insulting steps, towards the sincerity and |
| 323s | intimacy all of us crave at heart. |
| 329s | Our table talk placecards are designed specifically to help spark meaningful and revealing conversations. |
| 336s | For more information on exactly how they do this, including example cards, click the link on screen now. |