I Hate Small Talk

“Yeah, er, I had to dismember that guy with a trowel. What have you been up to?”

The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

Small talk, get it? Because he’s a small child who is presumably talking on that telephone. It was the best I could come up with, OK?

There’s a video by Cracked: After Hours that asks what cliché features of television and film could make useful loophole superpowers – like knowing that whenever you turned on the news, the headline would be of great importance to your personal situation, or being able to recall any event with perfect clarity by means of a flashback.¹ Convenient as these would be, my favourite item on the list was knowing that every conversation you had was going to somehow advance the plot of your life, or be revealed later on to have been of some great significance. Wouldn’t it be nice to do away with all that pointless small talk?

The trouble is that I tend to just work my way through a set repertoire of questions and answers that keep the conversation rumbling along on a really very shallow level. I inquire after the nature of someone’s day, or weekend, or whatever the most recent holiday period was; he or she makes some vague comment to the effect that it was a reasonably positive experience, and inquires after mine, to which I offer a similarly banal reply. Conversations are so much more enjoyable and valuable when the subject matter is something of great interest or importance to at least one of the parties involved, and yet it’s such hard work pushing them onto that kind of territory; too often they never actually leave Small Talk Land before they are brought to an end.

Of course, an exit visa from Small Talk Land is theoretically very easily obtainable; all one has to do is put a bit of thought into answering such questions as, “How’s your week been?” and “Any plans for the weekend?” and “So how are you?” honestly. But such answers are unexpected, and transgress the parameters of what’s socially acceptable. Let me give some examples:

“How are you?”

“Currently, fairly thrilled to be having this conversation, because I secretly really fancy you.”

Hmm. Maybe not. Try this:

“How are you?”

“Kind of in pain. The second day of my period is always the worst for cramps.”²

That’s a fairly sure-fire way of making your addressee uncomfortable. Or what about this:

“How are you?”

“Sad. It occurs to me that you’re one of my favourite people in the world, and yet, as things stand, I’m forced to believe that you’re spiritually dead and destined for an eternity separated from God and everything that’s good in existence. Do you know how much that utterly breaks my heart? I was crying about it just now.”³

Yeah … somehow that’s not really an acceptable answer either. And so I don’t offer it, even when it’s true. In fact, usually when I answer the question, “How are you?” I’ve already said something positive without having really thought about it, and moved immediately on to echoing the question right back again, in an odd sort of determination not to be rude. And so neither of us breaks past this superficial level of conversation, unless one of us has the audacity to challenge the other on her answer: “Really? You don’t sound too sure you’re all right,” or similar.

And my request is this: please do. Please challenge me. Please make me think about what I’m saying and work up the energy to drag myself out of the dull, dissatisfying comfort of Small Talk Land. And please do your part too. Please ignore that advice someone once gave you, though I don’t doubt it was in good faith, that the way to create a good conversation is to do nothing but ask questions: how am I supposed to strengthen my connection with you if the traffic is only one way? Please tell me about the things you care about. I’m interested, because if you’re interested you make it interesting – and if I care enough to be having this conversation, I care enough to listen to what you really want to talk to me about.

I’m not suggesting that we all start responding to “How are you?” with the kinds of responses I gave above; that would be taking things a bit far. Nor am I criticising people for asking me how I am; there’s nothing wrong with the question itself, only the way I habitually give so little thought to my answer. What I am suggesting is that we all try to have deeper conversations more often. Those are, after all, the ones we remember. Those are the ones that advance the plotlines that tie our lives together. And I don’t think I can be the only person who craves something more substantial than small talk as social nourishment. The mindless asking and answering of the same typical questions will, I anticipate, be a difficult habit to break. But, all the same, shall we try?

Footnotes

¹ Here it is, and with a playlist of other episodes on the side too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pMvzYZx2h0&list=PL5CC44F2C10A8415C&index=9.

² I read once that bananas ease period pain, but, based on personal experience, I’m fairly sure they don’t. What you really want is a heated wheat bag, a comfy bed, and a sufficiently distracting film, but unfortunately you usually have Things To Do that prevent you from indulging in such. YouTube saimasmileslike is hilarious on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AehFZHkClTc.

³ Look, I dislike the doctrine of hell as much as the next twenty-first-century Christian, but honestly, Jesus goes on about it so much that I really don’t see a way round believing it. Try Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43; Luke 16:19-31; John 5:25-29; and Revelation 20:11-15, as a few random examples; here’s the Matthew chapter to get you started: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+13&version=ESVUK. And then recall John 3:16 or Romans 5:1-11 or whatever that passage is for you that never seems to lose its ability to push you to your knees in sheer amazement and thankfulness at the bewildering depth and brilliance of God’s mercy in placing his dearly beloved Son under the punishment you deserved. Jesus went through hell so we didn’t have to. God be praised.