Picture this: Your at a bus stop minding your business and some random man walks up to you and asks How’s the Weather? You look at him and say fine. He says I agree and then he proceeds to talk about his dog Marley.
The stranger attempted to converse through the use of small talk. Small talk is more or less an ice breaker that may or may not lead to a genuine conversation.
10 Common Phrases of Small Talk
1. So how’s the weather?
2. How are you?
3. Are you from around here?
4. What do you do?
5. What’s your name?
6. Are you having fun?
7. How’s your weekend been/are you looking forward to the weekend?
8. What did you think of (event, news event, item, product)?
9. It’s a nice day, isn’t it?
10. That’s a nice (coat, dress, pants, shoes).
Source: http://englishharmony.com/small-talk/
So apparently the point of small talk is to break the ice and go into a more serious conversation. For me, I think small talk is a complete waste of time. I believe it’s best to get to the point and not beat around the bush. I mean do you really care how my weekend was, probably not, so just get to the point.
The worst kind of small talk is from family members at a family gathering or social event involving relatives you haven’t seen for over a year.
If your a kid going to school, whether it be high school or lower or even college, your always going to hear these 5 small talk phrases.
5. How is school going?
4. Do you have a job?
3. Do you have a girlfriend/boyfriend?
2. How’s your girlfriend/boyfriend?
1. How’s life?
I had the experience of having all of these questions asked and I usually lie about the answer. Yeah I have a girlfriend, a job, and school’s going great but they don’t know that and why should they. I don’t get why family members have to ask the same questions every time. This is exactly why I believe small talk is very unnecessary.
The other forms of small talk even involve your friends that you’ve known for years. Yes even with your friends, there are often dumb small talk phrases being carried on as if they are complete strangers and they just met you.
There are 5 common small talk phrases between you and your friends that get extremely annoying.
5. So what’s going on.
4. Did you do anything this weekend?
3. What are you doing?
2. What do you wanna do?
1. It’s a nice day.
Small talk is completely pointless. Do any of these phrases have any importance? Why the need to break the ice with your good friend, it doesn’t make any sense. Just get to the point already and let’s have a real conversation.
So while small talk can be good at breaking the ice, and it’s probably the best time small talk can be used without it being annoying, it’s usually pointless and unnecessary. So next time you ask How’s the Weather? think about what you’re really trying to say. A simple “Hello” is a good start and then get on with the conversation, if not, then avoid the conversation altogether.
And if your the innocent bystander getting hit with small talk, then either deal with it, or try to back away from the conversation to clearly indicate that you don’t wanna be bothered. It’s the only way you’ll escape the small talks wrath, besides completely running away from the person, which is an option by the way.