The birth of small talk

This world has its ups and downs, but parts of it really suck. Airlines that decide it’s OK to strand me in a dirty motel on New Year’s Eve fall into this category. I could also do without hangovers, Proctor tempeh dishes and sadness, all of which are arguably the same thing. But by far the worst, most horrible, atrocious thing that we have to deal with is the dreaded awkward silence. I mean really, what is worse than seeing someone and not talking to them?

The correct answer to the above question is: a whole lot of things, one of which is thinking that silence is inherently awkward. Silence is a necessary part of conversation that creates the contrast needed for all things other than silence to happen. It can also be a valuable indicator that a conversation has run its course and needs to end. It does not in any way condemn a person or interaction as awkward. Most people, however, seem to be deathly scared of conversational silence and attempt to avoid it like the plague. From these humble beginnings, small talk is born.

Small talk represents anything we talk about that we don’t particularly care about, and it is a staple in all of our daily conversations with acquaintances. Think about the last time you asked someone what their major is. Do you really care what their major is? Maybe you have been wondering what their major is over the past few hours preceding your encounter with this person, in which case I’m glad all your unfulfilled speculation can be resolved. But I’m willing to guess that, more often than not, you are just trying to make conversation. It is totally fine and not shameful at all to admit to talking about things without caring about them. Small talk is often necessary to lead into topics that are actually interesting. It often takes a few rounds of discussing the weather or how tired/stressed each of you are to finally find something actually interesting to talk about.

Despite its possible usefulness, small talk can quickly devolve into a mixture of uncomfortable and/or hilarious babbling. This occurs when we get too hung up on our fear of silence and the goal of small talk is no longer to provoke interesting conversation, but instead to provoke any words at all. I have experienced a myriad of responses to this situation. My personal favorite, though, is when someone tries so hard to stave off silence that they stop making sense altogether. Results of this strategy include, but are not limited to: laughing at inappropriate times, sarcastically answering legitimate questions and using words outright incorrectly. I once witnessed (and definitely was not involved in) an exchange involving one person saying, “I’ll see you later,” and the other person (not me), still flustered from the already awkward conversation, responding “Yeah, how’s it going?” Needless to say, there was no answer.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to eliminate awkward small talk from our verbal diet; it remains a vital step in conversing with anyone other than a close friend. If we can get over of our phobia of silence, though, we can learn to use small talk when it’s useful and give it a break when its prolonging a dying conversation. We just need to realize that a lull in the conversation is not the worst thing to happen to mankind. I believe that title goes to the evil adolescent turd that we call Justin Bieber.