I work in recruitment, dealing with new candidates. Communication, or at least showing interest in a candidate, is no problem at all.
It’s more when we have team meetings and everybody adds a little quip or gives banter a go. 95% of the time it’s upper management trying their hardest to make everybody laugh… it’s pitiful.
Then when I’m in the office everybody always comments on the weather, or they have the same exact conversations they’ve had 100 times in the past year. I don’t care about the time you went to Ibiza 16 years ago…
Surely I’m not the only one who thinks these conversations are pointless?
I love talking to people – I just don’t see the point of repeating the same exact topics of conversation every week.
It happens with my friends too. They talk about the same TikTok’s, or jokes, or stories which happened years ago.
I am eternally grateful I can work from home all week, and that I don’t spend too much time invested in a single candidate…
**How on Earth do I stop fake smiling / laughing, and actually enjoy these conversations?**
Edit: for context, I am a 21M.
17 comments
Its a necessity dont enjoy it
I was totally thinking about the same thing today. Everybody around me just seems to want to talk about meaningless things all day. I get so bored of that. If I make a deeper conversation with someone, they start thinking of me as their therapist. It’s just so annoying and exhausting. But I don’t get why people can’t be more real either.
Go watch news & bingo you have new topic of discussion everyday
I read this in Toby’s voice.
Fellow small talk hater here. A word of warning, if you switch to real convos it can get weird on you fast in a professional setting. Boundary problems. Oversharing. Distorted expectations. Small talk is a necessary evil at work. That being said, you can always go for the middle ground.
Are you doing anything fun this weekend?
How are (insert pet names here)?
I’m really looking forward to (x). What are you looking forward to?
Most people can talk safely about music, movies, hobbies, their favorite hot beverage, and personal-vaguely-positive things like vacation.
For whatever reason my life has almost no small talk in it. I recently had an existential conversation with my postman. I want to go back to small talk, but I think I’ve become too blunt and now most of my chit-chat is kind of real. I’d welcome any tips on returning to small talk.
I guess a lot of people is having the same problem
Tbh when you see ppl. all the time, even your nearest and dearest, the conversations become repetitive. It’s more of social ritual than the exchange of vital or interesting information. If we were monkeys we could just groom each other.
Small talk helps people to feel more comfortable before going in with the real conversation. It’s like a warm up.
The one that makes me want to put a bullet in my head is “It’s Friday!”
Three times at minimum, every Friday.
I know how to read a calendar, you fucking twats.
Sounds like you have a great opportunity here. If everyone is bad, repetitious, and boring at small talk, then you can easily be the best in the room just by not resorting to that. So it’s time to analyze what DOES make a conversation good for you? What do you bring to it to make it not be pointless and boring?
I have some of my own ideas on that, but I’d love to know yours.
Don’t fake it if you don’t want to. Be yourself
Lead the conversations when you can and just accept tons of people are boring and have shit social skills. you can easily go beyond surface level convos that are usually enjoyable when you simply ask a lot of questions. Questions you genuinely have about things you actually care to learn about. This makes convos bearable and makes you very like able as well
I hate small talk so usually I act like I’m dealing with a personal problem that I don’t wanna talk about or I take a very stupid little problem from my day and exaggerate it into a whole story that I repeat for the whole day so people don’t think I’m being antisocial
LMAO, I know right?! :/
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you’re based in the UK and this is one of your first jobs after uni or sixth form. I say that because it was exactly the same for me, and based on your age and the constant biza/weather chats.
You might just legitimately not enjoy these conversations. Any time I talked with my colleagues in recruitment about something I wanted to do, they thought I was weird because I didn’t want to get a car on credit and live it up on the “live, laugh, love” philosophy. I thankfully got out of that industry and went to work in a few others where I shared common interests with my colleagues.
Even if you definitely want to keep working in recruitment (which is a valid career path) you might find different industries or companies to fit you better. Once you’ve got past the first job or two, you can evaluate companies based on culture fit and be much happier
I hate it too. It feels so fake when I watch other people do it. It just weirds me out and I’m so bad at it myself so I come off so awkward.
I’m at my best socially when interacting with friends. With strangers and recently met acquaintances I struggle so much at small talk and talking in general.
I’ve never talked about this because it felt like I was sounding pretentious.
There’s a great movie called “Groundhog Day” with Bill Murray, who plays a unhappy newscaster who is forced to live the same exact day over and over again. Eventually he gives up resisting and learns to enjoy it and to use his special knowledge to help people.
Small talk has socially imposed rules — be pleasant, be superficial, present the appearance of happiness, of caring about the trivial — and these rules seem to require the presentation of a personal mask of personality that contradicts deep desires like for genuine connection, silence, authenticity. These contradiction can trigger a great inner pain — a giant well of anger, loneliness, and shame. These energies were already in you to begin with. They have been repressed into the psyche, held onto. Now they come to the surface.
The ego hates these emotions and will go into defense mode when they arise. “I hate small talk” it will say as it tries to rationalize some new trick or distraction or repression. However, it is these emotions themselves which much be allowed to come to the surface and to be felt, known, and allowed (over time) to dissipate through the body. This is how we let go of all the stored pain and trauma and start to become happy, joyous, and free.
So think of small talk as a gym for helping the body release stored emotion. When the pain comes, don’t freak. Instead, just kind of detach and look at the quality of the energetic sensation of pain. Relax the body. Breathe. Don’t try to make the pain go away, just kind of try to become one in harmony with it. This is yoga in its truest sense.
As you harmonize with the (seemingly painful) energy inside and let it dissipate, you will start to notice a joy that arises in you. Then a funny thing may happen. You may find that these little interactions are opportunities to relax and to share a loving energetic space with others.
When the ego’s life-resistant thinking arises “I hate small talk” talk back to it and say “small talk is how I will allow my energy to come to the surface so I can let it go”. Then, relax the body. Let the energy be there. Let it flow. When it’s ready it will let go.