About Small Talk

Small talk is defined as idle banter typically on innocuous or unimportant subjects. People engage in small talk to open conversations usually out of politeness. The problem with small talk is that it is rarely innocuous. Small talk can be irritating and offensive. Besides when is it polite to interrupt someone’s solitude with an attempt to start a boring conversation. Take the elderly gentleman who plops himself beside you on a shopping mall bench and announces that it’s a beautiful day. How are you supposed to respond? As far as he is concerned it is a beautiful day but you just dropped and damaged your cell phone and your wife maxed out her credit card. The best diplomatic answer you can give him is that the day sucks. End of small talk! Beware of whom you are trying to engage in conversation. An innocuous ( I love the word, it implies absolutely nothing) subject may be someone else’s flash point. So why do we have small talk? To be polite? Perhaps a little big talk would be more appropriate. A little big talk sounds like small talk. And that's what this musing is - small talk!