Up Front: Casual, Shallow and Meaningless
223 Responses
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JacksonP, in reply to
Though self-esteem can be unhelpful.
’Tis better to be vile than vile esteeem'd
In particular, beware the false adulterate eyes.The other side of the coin is everyone else learning ways to communicate and build relationships that respect different levels of comfort or proficiency with small talk.
Yes.
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It is very difficult to find that value neutral question to start a conversation. I have found that if it is at a party or function for someone or for a particular cause to ask "What is your relationship to x?" and that is usually pretty safe, and they have to answer with more than yes or no and that provides something to build on. People are often happy to talk about their own lives if you can get onto something that is important to them (not too confidential). Once you have got that far you can get on to politics.
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I started a conversation tonight with 'sorry, I'm terrible with names...' He'd forgotten mine too, so it was sweet.
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This is almost therapuetic. I thought I was the only one who has troubles with small talk (medium talk is ok; big talk is great). My daughter increasingly comments on my social awkwardness but there are situations that resemble hell eg meeting MPs or, recently, making a hurried tour of the Home & Garden Show. My strategy: walk quickly, avoid all eye contact, reject all offers to sell you dodgy kitchen gadgets or spa pools.
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Emma Hart, in reply to
I have found that if it is at a party or function for someone or for a particular cause to ask "What is your relationship to x?" and that is usually pretty safe, and they have to answer with more than yes or no and that provides something to build on.
What I would really, really love to be able to do is hostess properly. Shush. I mean, introduce people who don't know each other with a little one-sentence snippet about each person that leaves them with something to talk about. I can work out when people I know will hit it off, but I'd like to be able to help.
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Hilary Stace, in reply to
I would love to be able to do that. Tricky part is getting them into the same place at the same time, when it is quiet enough for each to hear the other. Unfortunately, they might also dislike each other on sight.
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And without revealing in that one sentence something they would rather not have publicised. As in, "This is Garth, he has a wonderful model train set in his garage".
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
Ben, I like what you're saying and it makes a lot of sense to me. Trouble is, it runs completely counter to my own experience. For one thing, I find learning foreign languages infinitely easier than making small talk in English. I'm quite happy reading newspapers and novels and textbooks and poetry in French and Chinese, but I need to know somebody reasonably well before I can converse easily with them. And I'm pretty sure it took me until university to learn how to converse in English.
In my work life, I learned to deal with my social awkwardness by acting, creating a "social Chris" persona that I put out there to deal with my colleagues. Trouble is I have to do that in two languages, often simultaneously, but it works. It drains me, but it gets the job done. With my students, the teacher-student relationship/divide helps immeasurably.
Outside of work social interactions can be quite fraught. My Chinese-language self reminds me a lot of my 12-year-old English-language self, in that I find it incredibly difficult to take part in conversations. I know I'm supposed to, and in theory I know what is supposed to happen, but there is some mental block that I'm still trying to work through. It drives my wife nuts in the same way and for the same reasons I drove my parents nuts when I was a kid, but there you go, there's me. I can still be very awkward in English, even more so in Chinese. In fact, I'm pretty confident I'd find it easier to learn Mongolian to the point where I could read the Secret History than properly learn this small talk/social interaction thing.
Shared too much, perhaps, but that seems to be a common problem around these parts.
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The other alternative is just to get two big brains together and sort of interview them about their ideas in this 1971 Chomsky Foucault discussion http://www.openculture.com/2011/10/chomsky-foucault_debate_1971.html
I mention this because I got two good friends together finally and they had a nice chat in the rain in a Cuba Street carpark about Foucault and Marx, because the topic was so interesting and there are not many people who share the passion.
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Hebe,
Emma Hart: I loved this piece; TMI are my middle initials. Why have a conversation if it's not a real one?
@Isabel Hitchings: I agree, competitive parenting is so vile.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
What would be some good ice breakers that aren’t of the How are you?, What do you do variety?
I’ve long suspected Laurie Anderson must be a gas at cocktail parties. Que es mas macho iceberg or volcano?
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Isabel Hitchings, in reply to
The worse small talk starter ever (and one I use distastefully often) is "And what do you do?" How the hell do you answer that?
If you ask this of someone like me, for whom parenting is my primary occupation, you are going to come away with the perception that I can't talk about anything other than my kids because that is the only opening you've given me. Asking "what are you interested in?" is better.
I frequently get stuck in situations where people blithely assume I agree with them and it often takes quite a while until there is a conversational space where I can put them right by which stage saying what I really think is impossible without being horribly rude. I find this utterly perplexing as I never assume someone shares my opinion without fairly solid evidence.
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All my life, I've found other people - inscrutable.
I learned to understand my mother (who also understands me best)
some of my siblings (5)
and a very few friends.
Or, people I've known in safe social relationships for many years (Shakespeare reading group.)Small talk/gossip/ socialese - cant do it. I am very bad at normal social gatherings,
and, over the years, have stopped trying at them.Some sound so inviting - Foo! - but then I realise the logistics & all the rest of it,
and know, No-I know it is slightly unhealthy but I prefer now to not go to any social gathering
where it involves a majority of people I dont know.It sounds pathetic but it is waaay less stressful than finding yourself with people who ask, "Well, who do you reckon will win on Monday?" (or whatever.)
For the record, I've never been to a hair dresser in my life. My mother cut my hair until I was 18 - I've cut it thereafter.
Fortunately, I have this mass of curly stuff which is very forgiving of - hacking-
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
... which largely explains why Craig is yet to be knighted.
I could see how offering to steam clean the head of state's downstairs carpet for a modest fee would put a crimp in that ambition.
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BenWilson, in reply to
What I would really, really love to be able to do is hostess properly.
It's a skill, most certainly. But there's small talk in it. Introducing people to the next love of their life might involve wading through the shallows. It seems like a very meaningful activity to me.
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linger, in reply to
yeah, you'd probably have to offer to do it for free
and not mention putting a crimp in it.
royals are just so entitled, eh. -
Amy Gale, in reply to
But this was my first professional colour, so the first time I'd been in the salon for two hours. My tweets became increasingly desperate.
I cannot emphasise strongly enough that no matter how good the salon's espresso machine is, you should UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES drink coffee the entire time. Not unless you enjoy buzzing round like a toddler who has just had its very first raspberry popsicle while your friends laugh hysterically.
Also, hair salons tend to have way better trashy magazines than dentists.
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Okay, this has made me think. Everyone is, at some stage, strangers to each other. So how have you initiated your friendships? Have others initiated, or have you made the first move? Did someone introduce you? I am curious, because I'm thinking about how we make friends. So if you don't do small talk (I'm assuming we mean that initial "Hi, how are you? etc" that people do when they first meet), what does that first blooming of friendship look to many of you?
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Paul Campbell, in reply to
And without revealing in that one sentence something they would rather not have publicised. As in, "This is Garth, he has a wonderful model train set in his garage".
unless of course that's a wonderfully crafted euphemism for something else ..... as in
offering to steam clean the head of state's downstairs carpet for a modest fee
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
beyond the mall stalk... entering amityville
what does that first blooming of friendship look (like)
when buds branch into buddies
cordiality flows to new tolerances
blowhards puff into harmonicas
alleys widen to alliances
sidekicking along companionways
thus pals become palpable -
Jackie Clark, in reply to
Yes! Couldn't have said it better myself, Ian.
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HORansome, in reply to
You can get by without small talk: I've managed to initiate friendships and the like by launching straight into the big talk ("Come on, boffins!") by just being disarming (and slightly charming). It probably is a special skill: years of speech and drama coaching (once again, part of my learning to work with my disability) has been useful, but small talk isn't necessary, just sufficient (for some people).
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
remembering where students were sitting when I first met them
You could tell them that you will call the person in that seat John regardless of who sits there, then it's up to them if they want to be called by their own names.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
I could see how offering to steam clean the head of state's downstairs carpet
Don't be silly she has little people to do that for her already
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Sacha, in reply to
corgis
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