Reading this thread made me realise I developed this as a defence mechanism and have honed it over many years, but as you say it's a great social skill as well.

Reading this thread made me realise I developed this as a defence mechanism and have honed it over many years, but as you say it's a great social skill as well. It's amazing how many conversations you can have about interesting subjects (and thereby dodge smalltalk) by simply rewording them into something everybody at the table can understand.