Do better than "small talk"!
I've never been the best when it came to speaking in public, or talking with others. I always considered that the subjects I'm willing to talk about are boring to other people, especially when I was younger, because I was mostly interested in video games, and that is not the best thing to talk about with a stranger.
However, in time, I discovered that most people, even tho they communicate a lot, don't have too many things to say. I realized, after talking to many strangers, that they are not capable of doing better than "small talk".
In case you're not familiar with the term, "small talk" means talking about unimportant things, like how the football game went last night, what stupid thing someone you know did, and how much you care about puppies.
That is small talk. That is talking about obvious things everyone can talk about, because there's nothing too complicated there. I don't think you have to be a smart person to discuss the reason puppies are so cute, or why your favorite team lost the football game last night.
And that's a problem a lot of people have. I've seen men complaining that women these days are not interested in anything other than clothes and shoes, when they could not hold a conversation about something interesting for more than 3 minutes. Same goes for women. Men don't want to talk only about football, but they do get bored of you really fast when you only talk about your favorite band and how a man should behave around a lady.
Those kind of subjects are boring, and were discussed so much, people instantly get bored of you for bringing them up in a conversation. The sad thing is that it seems like people just can't do better.
I have friends who complained to me about how boring their girlfriend or boyfriend is, and the only thing I was thinking was "you're just as boring, why do you complain????".
I believe people should learn how to do better than small talk. I believe people should stop worrying about what others will say about them, and talk about interesting things, subjects not everyone have the courage to talk about. Weather is a lame excuse to start a conversation.
That's one of the reasons I love books so much. They give you enough information to be able to keep a conversation going by bringing up interesting topics. If you read a book about the life of an interesting man, and you find a person who also knows a few things about that man, that's a 10 to 30 minutes conversation right there, and you can use it to impress the other person with the things you know!
Trivial subjects are so damn boring, it will make everyone go away from you, so please, for the love of God, stop bringing them up. You spend so much of your free time online, watching all kind of interesting things, and somehow, when you try to communicate with someone, you feel the need to talk about the weather.
Stop that. Talk about different things, talk about wars, talk about food, talk about sex, talk about music, talk about the best movie you saw, talk about that scary moment when you almost died, talk about the reason the educational system sucks, hell, you can even talk about Steemit.
There are so many interesting things out there, you have no excuse to talk about trivial subjects. Many people are afraid to talk about sex, well here's some news in case you didn't know - women and men enjoy sex at the same level. We are humans, we love sex, so talk about that. If the other person feels offended, good, find someone more interesting.
Same goes for religion. Some people are even more afraid to talk about religion than about sex! That's stupid. Try to talk about religion, but learn how to not get personal, and how to accept the way the other person sees things. You don't need to believe in the same God, you just need to talk about the subject. It's not an argument about who's right, it's an exchange of information.
People are boring because they are afraid of talking about subjects that may offend others. I say that's stupid, and you should never be afraid of that. If you want to talk about something interesting, and the other person gets offended, just go find someone else to talk with, because let me tell you a secret, i'd rather have a 45 minutes conversation with a pervert person about sex, and make everyone around me think I'm a sick pervert, than talk for 5 minutes about how rainy is outside and then try to get through the deadly silence that comes after that stupid subject.
Do yourself a favor, and the next time you talk to someone, try to approach interesting subjects, see if you two have something in common, and avoid small talk as much as possible. You can do better than that. If you don't think you can, get 3 books, read all of them, and then we'll see how many interesting subjects you can bring up.
Sounds advice for someone to do more then just small talk. Talking to people is a important skill to have.
Yes, exactly. Small talk has its role, but when you do it too much, it becomes boring and makes people see you as a boring person.
Makes perfect sense to me. Think a lot of people do struggle with getting away from it to more meaningful conversation that will engage people.
I like small talk. It's a quick way to break the ice because you both have an understanding of the topic. If I went on a first date and started explaining the principles of how steemit works if she isn't a member she may never return my calls.
Small talk has been around forever and there's a good reason for it. Communicaton shouldn't be made any harder than it already is for those who suffer from anxiety etc.
I like the article and it does have meaning but in this particular occasion I can't agree with you 😀
I agree that small talk is useful, especially when you first start talking about someone, you can't go to a random person and tell him or her "hey, let's talk about religion, because it's interesting".
However I also believe trying to move the conversation from small, not really interesting things, to more complex subjects, is a good idea, and the sooner, the better.
Anyway, I understand your point of view, thank you very much for your comment :)
Thanks for understanding 😀
No problem, glad I could exchange some opinions with others :)
Cool post! I probably more cynical but feel that people just don't give a f-ck. Small talk is just to avoid awkward silence in public places. Simply filling the time until they can meet up with their friends -- and laugh about the weirdo they were forced to talk about the weather with in line at Chipotle.
Yes, exactly.
I hate it especially when people don't use small talk to just break the silence, but when they use it to actually socialize and to try and meet new people. It seems like they don't even try to talk about something better, they just talk about whatever they can, because maybe the other person will enjoy it.
I don't know I think some people just don't know how to talk to others any more, or they just don't have any other subject they could talk about.
I couldn't agreed more with you! Thank you for sharing :))
Thank you for commenting :)