I can’t do mindless chatter. I don’t mind meeting people and talking with them at all, but I don’t go out of my way to do it. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to avoid being in places with people I don’t know, in case I was required to talk to them.
One of my nightmare scenarios would be a dinner party with all kinds of people I’ve never met, having to mingle, not drinking anything harder than water, having to feign knowledge of interest in somebody else’s kids, job, sports team, political party, vacation home in the Poconos, what’s on television, fishing/hunting, or religion, and then having to eat unidentifiable food with them all watching. This is why I’ve never been to an “adult” party. I’m fifteen years from retirement age, and I’m still waiting to feel like I belong in my age group.
I could talk to anybody who has had similar experiences to mine, but I can count the ones I’ve met who fit the description on the fingers of one hand. I’m fine with a few good friends. Strangers, not so much.
Yup, and people who want to have “intelligent discussion” about “global politics” and “economics” at a friggin’ party bother me.
Especially, when those people who want to have an intelligent discussion about global politics and economics are usually the same people who have never made it through an entire editorial page of a major newspaper, or actually ever picked up a copy of “The Economist” or “The Weekly Standard” or who want to talk about Iraq but can’t tell you who Francis Fukuyama is, much less ever read a few thousand words by (or about) him.
Pardon me if I find that your views on the weather – something you might actually have some experience with – contain a little less. . .bullshit.
I don’t mind it, and like Trunk said, I’m usually very sincerely interested in what folks have to say. I get to learn a little bit about new people; I find that fun.
However, it does take a lot of energy. One of the career-hats I wear is that of pianist; I play for a number of cabarets, musical theatre productions, auditions, etc etc locally. Parties and social engagements related to any of these are about 50% fun, and 50% making sure I spend a little bit of time talking to whomever I think it’s important to meet/re-connect with/whatever. I’m putting on Fiddler on the Roof next week, and our opening night reception will find me hunting down some specific people to chat with. I will be honestly and sincerely interested in talking, but… well, I’ve just got to be ‘on’ all the time, and do so while not seeming like I’m tryign to be ‘on’.
For some reason, I’m reminded of what a friend used to say. “I don’t drink to make myself more interesting, I drink to make others more interesting.” He drinks a lot.
I would say that I hate small talk but I also dislike people to a large degree. My wife says that I am very good at it and that I can engage in a conversation with anyone at a social function and that I can usually find a topic to engage people in.
That may be true, but the older I get, the less patience I have and it seems the less likely I am to suffer fools. It seems that my tongue is getting sharper the older I get.
I’m not a big fan of small talk, but I’ve learned to cultivate it as a social skill, to be used when necessary. I certainly don’t enjoy it for its own sake. I just started grad school this fall, so for the first two weeks I HAD to make small talk in order to make new friends. But once I established a circle of people I felt comfortable it, that was basically it for me. That was it for most of us, I think. We socialized with each other until we got a feel for who we’d get along with, then stopped trying to meet new people after that.
I love small talk and cocktail parties. Not everyone does, though. Franklin Delano Roosevelt loathed social chatter. He found it pointless and to prove his theory that no one ever listens to it, he made the rounds at a party shaking hands with the other guests and saying to each, “How do you do? I murdered my grandmother today.” The other guests smiled and nodded and no one paid any attention to what he said.
I am SO with you on this one. It’s not that other people bore me, I’m just no good at small talk, I always feel so awkward. Unfortunately, my shyness is often interpreted as aloofness or snobbiness, which couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, once I’m comforatable with someone, I become quite animated (to many people’s suprise.) This is unfortunate, as the career I’m about to dive into requires an ability to engage in small talk quite frequently. In fact, I just went on Amazon and bought Dale Carnegie’s book “How To Win Friends and Influence People,” hoping to learn a few tricks to get over my shyness/awkwardness.
My S.O is very social and has a wide circle of friends who seem to always be having social gatherings. I’m telling you, these people have gatherings once every couple of weeks, it seems. In two years of being together, I barely know most of his friends, mostly beause I (1) try to avoid these get-togethers as often as possible and (2) when I do go, I tend to stay close to the SO and if I lose him, latch on to 1 or 2 people I know a little bit to the exclusion of everyone else. I’m not doing it to be rude, I’m just shy and get intimidated by big groups. I much prefer being in the company of 2 or 3 people.
I’ve tried making small talk, thinking if I forced myself, I’d eventually get better at it. It didn’t work. I tend to panic at the first pause in conversation and then go totally blank.
