The dictionary defines small talk as aimless, trivial, without direction. Like jive talk it is agreeable; avoids disagreement, controversy and contentious issues or topics; is of no consequence, unimportant; light vs. heavy or analytical; not deep; skirts around indirect, scribble, and not longhand.
Small talk is an opening gambit that grasps. Jive talk keeps it going like the random postman en passant who said to me, “I see you out walking.” Or the guy at the corner waiting for the light to change who asks me for directions to the post office. “Sure, I’ll show you.” “Thanks,” he says. “I’m not from here.” “Oh? Where’re you from?” “Chicago. I just got out of prison.” I named a suburb I’d heard of that was south of Chicago. “Oh, yeah!” he said. “That’s where we used to buy our guns.”
I can be a Chatty Cathy. I’ve tried to initiate small talk. We can read faces but we can’t read minds. Attitude and posture can read Don’t bother me, waste my time! When small talk is meaningless, a waste of time that goes nowhere and is of no vested interest we can get rebuffed. We’ve got to measure willingness we get spurned, shut down. Maybe they don’t feel like it. In/not in the mood. Tired. Small talk is simple, no glue, no-stick Teflon
When I asked my son, “How was work today?” he said, “Fine.” End of story. On the other hand a man named “Chip” and I were at the DMV and he was willing amiable, agreeable to small talk. Some people will go from small talk to confiding in you on train or a plane. A young man on the train seated next to me explained that his flight had been so scary he chose this train for his return trip. He was worried his employer would judge him inadequate if he found out.
Confide in people we’ll never see again? Have no stake in us? What is the effect? Intent? Purpose? People talk to find a connecting thread. Joni Mitchell once sang, “People talk to take up space.” Kept shallow it spends time. It fills empty waiting rooms and clumsy awkward silence. Small talk can be courteous, polite; people helping each other. It requires Q&A by both parties to keep it going. Is our small talk just curiosity? Or asked on a need to know basis? Need to know can be enforced when the answer is none of our business. We invest time/energy/interest that isn’t always genuine or honest; it’s snooping. Small talk like a rubber band can only stretch/go so far before it snaps. Eventually you let go, move on.
We can set up a foil to evade truth or embarrassment when small talk causes discomfort. Fireman guests at an Ice Cream Social appeared awkward with small talk. I think they trained and equipped and better at asking where does it hurt. We haven’t coined Big or Large talk, but a father might say, “Son, we need to have a little talk.” And something big will go down.
People aren’t what you think they are or wish they were or what you would want from them to be or even capable of. I’ve made assumptions that someone was safe or thinks like me and I’ve been wrong like the guy on University Ave who small talked, “How you doin’?” I ended up running down the nearest street to get away from him. How ‘bout the guy I spotted at the library who had so many conspiracy theories I inched my way backward away from him. How ‘bout the guy on the bike with the innocuous question framed in the guise of small talk that eventually devolved into a sham, request for money.
Small talk evolved from primate grooming talk which soothes is attention getting. People start with small talk but eventually confide in the groomer, the barber, the stylist and the manicurist.
Small talk happens between people, requires people, is not a stand-alone term or an object, has potential to take off in any and many directions, and is an interchange of thought, an initial intro to strangers, and an introduction to strangers. Parents warn children not to talk to strangers, but kids say, “Grandpa does it all the time!” Advice columnist Ann Landers suggests the weather. ”It’s too nice to go inside,” I said to the young woman as I sat down on the park bench next to her. Small talk led her to tell me her parents were from India. The sun set without our notice. Weather is a safe topic that applies to anyone everywhere.
Word of mouth has value you could pick up in small talk from your neighbors. It can bring news of danger, but the Police told me, “We can’t verify rumors.” The relationship of the parties determines the degree of privilege to ask, to delve, how it’s asked and who’s asking. It doesn’t move mountains, but small talk could reveal them. An acquaintance of mine always makes small talk about our obvious connection, our touchstone. One man told me that small talk, the opener, “Where’re you from?” opened a sad story. His small talk triggered something that she needed to tell. To talk is to connect to find something in common, i.e., to relate. Small talk can cause gates to open up “You’re from Nordeast? Yeah, I know Nordeast. I’ve been to Emily’s Lebanese Deli in Nordeast.” Or small talk gates to slam shut. Kerplunk.
Elizabeth’s work is published in Antonym, Barzakh, Bluntly, Coffin Bell, Denver, Drunk Monkey, Enizigam, Haute Dish, Helen Lit, Horseshoes and Hand Grenades, In Parenthese, Indie Blue, Meat for tea, Obra/Artifact, Denver Quarterly, Open Arts Forum, Oregon State’s “45th Parallel,” Poached Hare, Poets Choice, Underwood, Wingless Dreamer.