• JackbyDev@programming.dev
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    4 days ago

    Why do you think small talk isn’t interesting? Sharing neat things that happened during the day is small talk. Talking about your hobbies is small talk. Talking about cool movies and TV shows is small talk. All interesting topics.

    • myliltoehurts@lemm.ee
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      4 days ago

      Is talking about your hobbies and interests really small talk? I always attributed small talk to the like of “how is it going? Fine thanks and you? Fine too thanks oh damn crap/great weather we are having huh?”

      • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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        4 days ago

        “What have you been up to today?”

        “I was fiddling with my ham radio, I contacted Portugal for the first time.”

        Bam. Small talk about a hobby.

      • Manticore@lemmy.nz
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        4 days ago

        It absolutwly can be small talk.

        Small talk is a low stakes way to build rapport without exchanging any information that is intimate, vulnerable, or confrontational.

        Talking about the weather is boring small talk. I hate boring small talk very much, but small talk in general is important for building rapport with people you don’t know well enough to be vulnerable with.

        Talking about pop culture, like [TV SHOW] or [LOCAL TEAM], are also small talk.

    • artichoke99@lemm.ee
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      4 days ago

      Why do you think small talk isn’t interesting?

      because im sad, bitter, and socially inept

    • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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      4 days ago

      Because a great deal of it isn’t interesting. I have to listen to all the ancient dudes I sit next too talk about the most innane crap all day long. I don’t need that when I get home too.

      • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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        4 days ago

        I’m not saying all small talk is interesting I’m saying not all small talk is boring. For whatever reason people have it in their heads that if it’s small talk, it’s boring, and if it’s not boring it isn’t small talk. That’s not what the phrase means though.

        I get it, people can yap, and sometimes it is boring as hell. I’m not trying to say the boring conversations you overhear at work actually are thrilling.

        • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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          4 days ago

          IDK what to tell you. I don’t think of interesting conversations as small talk. That’s not what I’m complaining about when I say I don’t like small talk. What I think of as small talk is when people seem to have to run their mouths just to ruin a perfectly good silence with shit about the weather or sports or something. That’s just how it is. If the conversation isn’t going to go past small talk I’d be just as happy to not have it at all.

          • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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            4 days ago

            What are things you like to talk about? It’s possible other people say the same thing you just did but list the topic you said instead. Weather is fascinating. Sports are fun. People like different things.

            • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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              4 days ago

              It’s fine that others don’t share the same interests as me. I don’t expect them to talk to me about them if they don’t want to. We can sit in silence. That’s nice too.

              • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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                4 days ago

                Yeah, I’m not saying sitting in silence is bad and that you must engage in small talk, I’m just saying “small talk” is not inherently a bad thing. Too many people seem to think “if it’s talk I wanna do, it’s not small talk. All small talk is talk I don’t wanna do,” but that’s not what it means.