alt Hacker NewsAs someone who used to feel like they were bad at small talk, maybe this resonates with you.
I wasn’t bad at small talk. I was bad at sharing my thoughts and feelings because it didn’t feel safe. As a result the only things that felt like safe small talk topics were the weather and sports.
Overtime I’ve become better at sharing my feelings, even if they are “embarrassing“. I ended up talking for three hours on a plane ride last weekend with an absolute stranger. We talked about the differences in our family dynamics, what cities we find it easier and harder to make friends in, the current state of our relationships and what we wanted out of them. All of that was “small talk” because we were just passing the time with someone we will never meet again. But the subjects were not small.
A side effect of feeling comfortable talking about things that matter to you is that it gives you a lot more motivation to be curious and interested in things that matter to other people as well. Even better, if you share with people more deeply about how you are feeling, they will be able to help you in ways that you didn’t even realize were possible
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This is what I suggest too, what a good way of putting it!
Some people have very funny ways at looking at the most mundane context in my mind. It would be a shame if I didnt spend time sharing my funny head in ways that can't be captured in a record!
my experience was different. yes, i get that sharing my thoughts sometimes doesn't feel safe, and when i was younger i did have that experience too. but i had and have no interest in popular sports, so that topic is poison for me. i have absolutely nothing to contribute. if someone wants to talk about sports i am thinking, why are they wasting their life? any other topic would be better than that. and talking about weather? well, got a window? open it!
but those topics you shared on the plane, well that's not small talk to me. i totally would have enjoyed being part of that conversation. as i get older, i can speak from experience. i can talk about my feelings that i have and had, because now i understand them. and, as a bonus effect, as you get older people treat you with more respect, which makes talking about any topic easier.
so i am bad at talking about banal, to me meaningless topics, and while it is getting easier, i don't actually have any interest in engaging in those topics because they not only feel like a waste of time, they are a waste of my time that i want to spend more meaningfully, like reading a book.