4 ms·

> I think it's important to realize that many people don't enjoy it either but just use it as a social grease to move into more deep conversation or connection.

• allenu 4y ago
  You're not wrong. Chitchat often isn't started with the intent to move into deeper topics. Maybe a better way for me to phrase it is I think small talk is a social convention we use to open up ourselves to the possibility of more connection. Talking about the weather to a stranger in the park is a low-risk way to connect. Once we're talking, maybe we'd both find something else we have in common and go from there, or one person isn't interested in going further, so we part and feel like we've lost nothing. It wouldn't be as effective, I think, to go in with the intent of talking about philosophy with a total stranger. Quick aside: I went on a first date with someone once who told me she wasn't interested in small talk and preferred deeper topics. She broke out a notebook and started asking deep questions about me, which I found really off-putting. It didn't feel to me that we had progressed to that level yet. There's something about human nature where, to most of us, we feel the need for some ceremony of going from mundane topics to get comfortable, and then eventually deeper ones. It felt like she violated that rule, in a sense, which threw me off.