this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2024
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[–] [email protected] 284 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Sometimes you don't need to fill the silence with sounds. I'd rather be in a relationship with someone that we can sit down and be quiet together

[–] [email protected] 87 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Or you can use literal sounds instead of words. My spouse and I have this thing going on where we make this kind of squeak/baloon sound with our mouth which has the same effect as "hi, nice to see you".

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Oh thank god my partner and I aren't the only ones. Don't get me wrong, we know and like that we're weird, but it's nice to have company.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 month ago

Hahahaha I love hearing about other people’s microcultures

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago (4 children)
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[–] [email protected] 206 points 1 month ago (3 children)

The key to understanding is finishing the sentence.

"I hate small talk... with people I have no reason to talk to and don't care about."

I love my partner, and even when it's small talk I can listen all day, just to hear their voice and learn a little more about them, to feel closer to the person I married in many small ways.

But I don't care about what Jim at the laundry mat did last weekend, or which machine he thinks makes socks dry faster.

[–] [email protected] 63 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I kinda want to know about the sock thing.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So you're a small talk person

[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Sock drying speed is important information, not time filler like the weather or sports.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 month ago

And Jim may have evidence to support his claim. This is important.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago (2 children)

But small talk is what got you your wife. What if Jim can be your future if you just gave him the time

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[–] [email protected] 189 points 1 month ago (7 children)

Its only "small talk" if you dont actually care about what the other person says. If you are genuinely interested, then its just a conversation. Thats how i see it at least.

[–] [email protected] 63 points 1 month ago

Yeah, this. Talking small is faking interest. I'm not good at that. But when I actually care about the other person, "what have you been up to" is meaningful. Cause I actually wanna know.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Yeah but small talk can get the ball rolling on a real conversation. It's just a way of initiating a conversation and it's giving an opportunity for someone to talk about things they might be interested in.

"It's nice day out today!" doesn't literally mean that. It means "there's an opportunity for us to do something outside if you'd like, but if not, perhaps you'd care to discuss something that's important to you instead? Of course you you aren't interested in having conversation or doing an activity, I'm perfectly fine with that too" but in a significantly more concise way. Sure you don't really care about their opinion on the weather or whatever small talk, but it's a completely open-ended expression of a willingness to have a conversation about something that matters to the other person. It's opportunity to have a real conversation without any pressure to have a real conversation.

Also it's not that hard to do.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Yeah but small talk can get the ball rolling on a real conversation.

It can also be used defensively to avoid having the ball get rolling on a real conversation. This is a key defensive use of small talk which can be deployed at occasions such as "Family Gatherings", "Workplace Water Coolers", "Sports Events".

If you know your relative is a conspiracy theorist and will inevitably try to use a gap in the conversation to talk about how the Jews are using their Space Laser to Direct Hurricanes at Lithium Deposits to Remove the Lawful Inhabitants from their Rightful Land... deploy small talk to avoid this.

P.S. Avoid "the weather" as that's an opening to talk about how the recent hurricane was controlled by Blackrock.

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[–] [email protected] 94 points 1 month ago (32 children)

Wife and I have a longstanding argument over whether free-will exists.

I say it does and she has no choice but to say otherwise.

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 1 month ago (8 children)

I'm able to make smalltalk. I just don't enjoy it, so I avoid it when I can.

And my wife and I don't engage in smalltalk. We talk about what we actually care about. Seems to have worked fine for the past 24 years.

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[–] [email protected] 61 points 1 month ago (2 children)

It's not small talk if you love the other person

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[–] [email protected] 58 points 1 month ago (5 children)

We will sit in comfortable silence together.

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Comfortable silence. Learn to appreciate it.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 month ago (2 children)

My wife is a VERY quiet person. She doesn't say a lot but when she does it's because she actually has something to say. This made me nervous when we were first dating but I've learned to embrace it. Silence is OK. She definitely talks more than she used to but we don't have to talk all the time. Sometimes she just looks at me and smiles without saying anything and in those moments I know that I am loved.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 month ago (5 children)

My interest in talking has more to do with who I'm talking to and less to do with the subject of conversation

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 month ago (7 children)

Imagine going through a marriage like "how about that weather"

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Extrovert cannot comprehend being quiet.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 month ago

I'd like to have similar interactions with my significant other to the ones I have with my cats. You know, things like siting on the couch together... saying silly things in even sillier voices... staring into each other's eyes while blinking slowly... yelling at her to get down from the cupboard...

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 month ago

If my partner can't handle silence, then there's something seriously wrong. We usually have something to do and if we don't we just cuddle up. There's no need for constant noise.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Did you see that ludicrous display last night?

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Pretty sure being in a long term relationship means you’ve moved on from small talk a long time ago.

I don’t want to talk with my wife about the weather, we have more important shit to worry about unless we’re literally having to dodge a tornado.

Small talk is for strangers.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Yup. And if we don't have anything more important to talk about, we'll just cuddle. Silence is absolutely fine with people you're comfortable with.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What if I told you: People who hate small talk only have meaningful relationships. It’s the shallow relationships they lack.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago (5 children)

It would be hell to come home to someone who only wanted to talk about the weather and how those jockstraps are doing.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I think there's a misconception regarding what counts as small talk. "Bland conversation that has no real point but to escape silence" is small talk. Asking you how your day went because I care about you is not. "How's the weather?" is small talk. "How was your trip to the grocery?" is small talk. These are dumb things and, if your relationship can't bear the silence that would be interrupted because "The vegan sausages were on sale today", then it prolly doesn't need to exist.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (5 children)

I'm not entirely sure what counts as small talk. When I think of it, it's usually conversation between strangers or acquaintances where neither party knows the safe topics, the topics to be avoided, or even the general preferences of the other. It's all testing water stuff.

I think that's what people actually mean when they say they hate small talk. They hate the awkwardness of not yet knowing enough about their interlocutor to know they won't accidentally upset anyone. Or they don't have the skill to navigate that social space to avoid negative consequences. It can feel downright dangerous in some circumstances.

And that's tough. Because the socialites think it's a skill issue, which it often is. And unfortunately if you don't learn that skill growing up, the social consequences of being bad at small talk only get bigger and more dangerous, which prevents folks from being able to practice freely.

I dunno. Just my $.02 I guess.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 month ago

Remind me never to get into a sustained meaningful relationship then.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (6 children)

Idk that I really do small talk OR do philosophical conversations with my partner but I'll let you judge. Here's the sort of things me and my partner say to each other throughout the day:

  • wanna play [whatever co-op we're into lately]? (Then several hours of strategy discussions)
  • did you eat all the chips again you FUCKER followed by BITCH WHAT IF I DID YOU ATE ALL THE OREOS???
  • If all dogs go to heaven do their people have to be there for it to be a dog heaven and does that mean hitler is in heaven because he had a dog?
  • miscellaneous bitching about our jobs
  • wanna fuck
  • the dog pissed in the elevator again it's your turn to go clean it
  • did you see the sweater I put the cat in?
  • Debates about whether or not a taco is a hot dog or vice versa
  • how many toys do you wanna get out for the fucking and more importantly how many are you willing to clean
  • that book you made me read is really melodramatic but I agree it's about black mold.
  • we should go visit the hot tub vs no it's too fucking cold vs that is the point of it being a HOT tub
  • wanna play cards against humanity with the cat
  • debates about who will hold the cat while we trim her claws
  • yelling at each other for being too loud while the other is sleeping and which offense is fundamentally more heinous (dayshifter vs nightshifter)
  • discussing the biopunk visuals in lexx and how they would have made all the butthole windows out of fabric
  • random nonsense words and noises like doing an entire karaoke bit but all the words are "doodoodoodoo doodley dooooot doo"
  • discussions about farscape's costuming department's extensive use of bondage gear
  • putting peanut butter on TOP of the dog's snout then filming her
  • what if we feel like we're seeing God when we're on mushrooms because the mushrooms ARE god and we're all just fundamentally here to feed them
  • blaming each other for the peanut butter thing to get the other person to clean it up
  • talking about weird internet personalities like chrischan or the tile patterns guy
  • calling each other old for stuff like heartburn after pizza or chronic injuries flaring up with the weather
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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago

Small talk by definition is useless drivel. I don’t build relationships on that…

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago (7 children)

In my perspective (a lonely person generally accustomed with my loneliness), small talk doesn't seem to be the problem. The problem is the lack of people's interest in deep topics, such as the aforementioned nature of reality: people either don't have the needed patience, time, or both. People are so busy running through the survival game of the mundane existence that deep topics are left for their afterlives (if there's one), when human ideologies and need for survival cease to exist. Small talk is like "sorry I got no time to think about the ultimate question of life, universe and everything else, gotta go to my modern slavery where I'm not paid to think but to obey, bye!". Deep inside, seems like a fear of becoming lonely as those that, just like me, likes to think about the depths of the reality and breaking paradigms (for example, "shouldn't we discuss how existence is so fleetingly finite in the grand scheme of cosmos and how futile is to accumulate wealth and goods?" is a granted source of loneliness).

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I dont know how to make small talk so i just learned to make really good goat noises

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago

My inability to carry even a basic conversation is just one of many reasons I have no plan to be in any kind of relationship, sustained or not, meaningful or not

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago (5 children)

I always took it as an early red flag that the person is way too intense and stressful to be around if every conversation has to be a do or die dynamic.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (12 children)

It's not that it has to be that exciting. Just don't talk endlessly about shit that doesn't matter. You bought a new kind of mustard, I don't need a 20 minute explanation on why. To me, someone who can't exist without noise, or making noise is a red flag. That being said, early on in the relationship is different because you're still trying to get to know them.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago

I've seen women like that on dating apps. Claim to hate small talk, include in their bio that if you just open with "hi" they'll unmatch you, and then when you put some thought into actually writing a response, ask a leading question about their interests or what they wrote in their profile, they unmatch you anyway.

#thisiswhyyouresingle

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago

personally im a firm believer in the shut the fuck up and be quiet camp.

Who cares if you talk. If you have something to talk about, talk about it, if not, don't it's that simple.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (6 children)

How did everyone take this post to mean that you should only do small talk with your partner and not have deeper conversations?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago (4 children)

I think this was written by someone who isn't comfortable with extended periods of silence with their partner.

My wife and I barely speak or communicate nonverbally for hours sometimes, then talk at great length other times. We always give each other an opportunity to talk about our day or whatever else is important, but we don't talk about trivial things simply for the sake of talking. We're comfortable with silence.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Someone once pointed out to me that what I consider small talk might be someone else's important.

Sure it might seem like gossip or chat about the weather just for the sake of talking but it can equally be someone trying to say that they are lonely and need reassurance.

I think about that a lot and I've become a lot more tolerant. Besides, you can segue into some pretty big chat from such humble starts.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

Ha, jokes on them! I haven't been in a relationship in about a decade and I don't see that ever changing so I don't need small talk!

...wait. Who's the joke on?

:P

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