I kind of hate small talk, but I read something on this forum lately that changed how I feel about it.
I used to feel a bit like this guy:
www.smbc-comics.com/comic/smalltalk. I genuinely love intense one-on-one conversations where people tell me all about their esoteric interests. But you’ve got to find some way of getting from “Hello” to “TELL ME ALL ABOUT YOUR MOTH CATALOGUE IT SOUNDS FASCINATING HOW MANY MOTHS DO YOU HAVE???” Small talk is like throwing out a series of conversational hooks until you get a bite.
So “Oh dear, looks like rain again” leads to “Yep, I’m glad I won’t have to water my giant coconut farm today!” to “TELL ME ALL ABOUT YOUR GIANT COCONUT FARM IT SOUNDS FASCINATING”.
Or “Got any plans for this weekend?” leads to “Yeah, I thought I might check out the tractor festival” to “Oh, you like tractors?” to “No, I’m more of a combine harvester girl. I’ve got a bit of a collection, actually!” to “TELL ME ALL ABOUT THE PAST PRESENT AND FUTURE OF COMBINE HARVESTERS IT SOUNDS FASCINATING”.
Or “How’s the family?” leads to “One of the kids is pooping in the toilet now! It’s such a relief! We thought it might never happen” to “Ugh, yeah, I remember those days. But honestly, you haven’t toilet trained anything until you’ve toilet trained a llama” to “TELL ME ABOUT YOUR PET LLAMA IT SOUNDS FASCINATING”.
Sometimes you have to have a few tries before something bites, but as soon as something seems interesting, you grab it and say “Tell me more about X! It sounds fascinating!” and you’re away. The best hooks are incredibly generic because it means you don’t have to remember anything from your last interaction and it’s on the person you’re talking to to bring it up/fill you in on the background.
I read a lot of conversational books that tell you to ask other people questions, but then it starts to sound like an interrogation. The conversational hooks idea is better for me because it means both people are both fish and fishermen. I’m still asking questions and seeing if something bites my line, but I’m also looking around to see if there’s anything for me to bite onto. (Disclaimer: I have never been fishing.) So I now focus maybe 60% on asking questions and maybe 40% on giving interesting responses.
I often work out “interesting” responses in advance if I know I’m going to be somewhere that has a lot of small talk – e.g. a wedding where I don’t know a lot of people, a new team at work… My categories tend to be:
1. Book I am reading at the moment
2. Thing I am making/DIYing at the moment
3. Mutual friend I have seen recently
4. Thing that is happening at work
So… “Looks like rain later!” leads to “Yep! Still, at least we’ve got rain! I’m reading this book about the Somalian famine at the moment…” or “I know, and I was really hoping to finish moving the topsoil in my garden tomorrow but I suppose I’ll have to wait to finish the raised beds for another few days” or “I am so over it! I saw Jeanie the other day and it was absolutely bucketing down. We’d planned to go to the park but…” or “I thought I was going to get soaked on the way to work yesterday, and thank heavens I wasn’t because I was carrying all the papers for Project Awesome in an open folder and just had to clutch them against my chest and pray!”
The hard part for me is then not monologuing about whatever it is for the next hour :) But it gets us into some actual talk.