I have a love-hate relationship with small talk questions. There’s a general consensus among me, myself and I that a certain amount of pleasantries needs to be exchanged before the talks-that-matter emerge. Curiosity remains a great tool to learn more about someone else. Next to googling his/her name but the stalkers among you already know this. Asking a small talk question is like popping a party cracker or baking something with cheese in the oven. It’s easy to do but the clean-up is a bitch. A one-time occasion is bearable but imagine if you had a whole room of full of glitter and confetti, or a tower of dirty oven dishes stacked up in the kitchen sink. Then it starts to get pretty annoying. I get more triggered from answering the same questions over and over again than from chugging a liter of protein shake (I’m lactose intolerant).
Unsuprisingly, I tried several ways to deal with these mini-frustrations. I figured that either, I could make sure better questions get asked or I could give better answers. When you encounter a shitty question, you can gently imply it’s a boring question and you’re used to having more substantial conversations. It’s a hard refusal. Some people can get away with this. I can’t, people just think I’m rude then. A soft refusal is when your answer is ridiculous. “Where do you live?” “On earth”. I think it’s a good way to deal with recurring questions. You can entertain yourself and at the same time gauge the reaction of your conversation partner. But if you do this too much, you give the impression you’re hiding something and/or can’t be taken seriously. Another way is to take control of the situation and ask questions yourself. “What do you do?” “I’m a nurse. So, tell me about the harsh truths you choose to ignore but know you shouldn’t”. There are of course less in-your-face options but the result would be the same. It creates a different dynamic and cuts right to the core. No chit-chat, real-talk only. Not all people can handle this though, including myself. I prefer to talk about COVID-19 and the weather.
I also tried giving very complete answers, almost executive summaries of parts of my life. You’d expect that the conversation would fan out in different, unexpected ways as there are many anchor points but more times than I expected, it resulted in just a “Aah, okay, cool” or “My stomach hurts, probably from the protein shake”. The basis fact is that people aren’t really that interested in the answers anyway. For me these “Where are you from”s are a matter of politeness now. Just breath in, smile, answer how many siblings you have and get it over with. Then keep the conversation flowing with your own conversational magic bullets.
There are instances where I had a really good and lengthy conversation with someone without knowing their name, occupation or mother’s maiden name afterwards. I forget most of the basic information anyway. If I get a test on what we talked about during the date, I’m pretty sure I’d fail it (unless it would be multiple choice). Not because the date was uninteresting or I was constantly thinking about non-whey protein shakes. No, just because a lot actually doesn’t really matter much, in my entitled opinion. I don’t know her favourite movie but I do know her current struggles and future aspirations. I can’t recall if she’s a dog or cat person but I can remember how she feels about her work and boss. I also recollect that she has excellent taste in men.
I know you’re all dying to know what we had for lunch. Well, we ate momos, Nepalese dumplings. It was okay, I prefer Chinese dumplings.
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