It's December now.

Hence the choice of tense for the second half of the OP title.

That makes small talk easier because you can just mention the War on Christmas.

But is that good small talk?

Yes.

Oh. Hmm. This is awkward.

Good small talk is the kind that doesn't involve me.

So, the weather is a thing.

I think that this is one of the things that makes teaching so nice - I'm interacting with other people, and it's all content-driven. I'm genuinely interested to find out how my students are thinking about the material. There's a bit of witty (or not very witty) banter, but it's not the sole method of passing the time - it's an accessory to discussing things I find interesting.

My strategy is to ask unexpected, low-risk questions that are actually interesting TO ME. It signals to the other person that I am actually paying attention to them, and it gives my brain something novel enough to attend to that I don't look bored -- because I'm not bored.

As a side benefit, I usually learn something interesting.

Give me your top five unexpected, low-risk questions that don't make one feel like a twee, aging MPDG.

You can always ask, "Which religion is the best one?"

Medizinprodukterecht-Durchführungsgesetz?

I'm now remembering that Farfegnugen jokes used to pass for actual humor. God the bar used to be low.

12: If you had to pick between Palestinians and Jews for world domination, which one would you pick and why?

14: To say nothing of "Freude am Fahrt."

I feel like small talk is when I realize on a really profound level that most people don't think at all about being funny. They're under the impression that if you say something in a jokey way, that's sufficient for making it funny. So it's just death by a thousand moments of forced fake laughter. "OH HAHA IS THIS LINE GOING TO TAKE ANOTHER HOUR?!" ugh.

Asking people if they know how to get Ivermectin is a good way to break the ice.

I have some friends who live in an extremely poor, unincorporated area not far from Heebieville, and threadworm is a big problem because something about the ground is really bad for septic tanks. Anyway, the treatment really is Ivermectin. Awkward hilarity ensues.

They should try to get extra and resell it to people who could only get the horse version.

Also, what kind of a third world county wouldn't install sewers if they couldn't prevent threadworm with septic systems?

We're still trying to punish them for being poor, but if that doesn't work, maybe we'll try running sewer lines out, who can say.

"After the great success of Barbenheimer, shouldn't the marketing teams of Napoleon and Maestro have been able to come up with something? Bernoleon really doesn't work though, right?"

Food, places, "have you read any good books lately ?" are all pretty much ubiquitously suitable openings where silently glaring is inappropriate.

I really liked Erving Goffman's "Forms of Talk" which explicitly takes up small talk and radio host chatter as reduced modes of speech that are useful analytical exercises

I remeber some here don't care for her writing, but Deborah Tannen wrote an essay about the New York Jewish conversational style that I liked that might be relevant here

24 is quite good as three suggested opening lines for meta-small talk

Funny, I feel like the sort of person who should be annoyed by small talk with strangers, but I actually kind of enjoy it. Finding out about people's jobs and families and neighborhoods and pets and so on is amusing enough for me for the length of most plausible conversations, and something might come up during the investigation that would get a real conversation going.

But I am both unusually nosy and generally inhibited by politeness, so a social sanctioned opportunity to make people explain themselves is great. "Justify your existence. I mean, fundamentally, what are you that's any use to anyone?" I ask more politely, but that's the general idea.

"Who do you think Taylor Swift is secretly married to?" is a good topic that everyone can relate to.

I was getting too much small talk four years ago when I worked in an office. I'm not sure how much is the right amount for me, but it's more than I'm getting working fully remotely.

I don't think of small talk as good or bad, so much as flowing or not flowing.

The trouble with a few preset topics is you can run out and then lapse into awkward silence.

There seems to be a skill you mostly just get from exercising the talking-muscle, where you keep bouncing from one topic to another, skimming over the surface, and can keep it up indefinitely. No individual part of such a conversation is substantively "better" than "How about that weather, huh?" but the flowiness and lack of lapses makes it feel better. I'm not there yet but am better than I was.

Streamers are extra-good at that, being able to chatter on without needing interlocutors. I have actually considered streaming with no face and likely no audience as practice.

Our company holiday party had been relatively consistently the Sunday before Veterans day, but this year we slipped back a weekend into the weekend before Halloween. My wife thought (jokingly) that'd be a good excuse to attend in costume... in the end she went as helpful wife.

I definitely endured a lot of years of holiday party at former companies; when you see people all the time, you've already had the small talk conversations. I'd mostly try to bring up interesting topics from recent water cooler chat, where the topic could be relevant to spouses - so general topics rather than work-specific issues. Though at the old company the spouses were mostly teachers, and my parents were teachers, so I could bring up the "grading, huh" observations and get small buy-in.

In my current company, my team is almost all remote. The do a good job of keeping the overall event moving and interactive - a few rounds of rock-paper-scissors to engage everybody with nice prizes, etc. I have a lot of people that I want to see in person, just to say hello live instead of over zoom - it feels a bit like collecting hellos (or Pokemon), but exchanging at least hello and nice to meet your spouse conversation, with an out of "gotta see if I can find team member X" keeps things moving.

I don't get the deep conversations that LizardBreath is aiming for, but it's a nice achievable goal - and gets me out of sitting at my table place like a stone the whole time.

Work parties are pretty easy for me now. We're deeply committed to open bars.

Every year my firm brings together almost all of our 250 employees for a few days of meetings and a party. This year the San Juan office hosted. I skipped the party, but I know it was great because I got this "all employees" email the morning after:

I am embarrassed to ask all of you if you may have seen my hearing, which I believe I lost when I fell off the elevated area near the rum bar last night. I didn't realize it wasn't in my ear until I got back to the hotel.

I have actually considered streaming with no face and likely no audience as practice.

I have no face and I must stream?

"What use are you" doesn't have to be deep -- it might lead to "I'm the sole support of a terrarium containing several pet rats". Just, you know, finding out what people's thing is.

I feel like putting an elevated area near a rum bar is just asking for trouble.

A sunken conversation pit, on the other hand, is just good sense. Anyone having trouble walking stumbles in, has a soft landing, and is easily located at the end of the party.

It's like one of those traps for fruitflies.

Rum works as bait for that too.

How is this whole blog not small talk?

This whole blog is an attempt to create a pun so bad it causes physical pain to the reader.

34: "'Repent, Streamer!' Said the TikTokman"

How is this whole blog not small talk?

I don't have to use a filter here. Nor fake laugh.

One specific conversation that motivated this post was a consensus-building conversation on how quick the semester seems to fly by, as in each new person was invited to give their opinion on whether or not the semesters seem to be flying by faster than ever. So fast! Wow! Yes! So much faster than this conversation, which feels like an endurance test!

You should have mixed it up by saying "Nah, you guys are just getting old."

Also, why exactly were there two holiday parties on the same day in November?

One was a lunch for employees and faculty, one was a dinner thing for STEM students. Plus a retirement party that I also stood around awkwardly in, for at least ten minutes! (Classes end next week, so anything mildly frivolous is this week.)

I think the pushing of kids toward STEM in primary and secondary school have pissed off the son. He's determined to be a history major. Someone should write an op-ed about him.

I do everything I can to avoid departmental parties, but when I am forced to go to one, I talk about the food. Like, if there are sandwiches from some local place, I asked if they've tried the burgers at some other place; or if it's cookies, I say I'm looking for a good gingersnap recipe, does anyone have one?

But yeah, I'd rather grade essays than go to departmental parties.

OK, so you let's say the small talk isn't going well and you're looking for an exit. How do you do so gracefully? For years I've used a desire to return to the snack table as an excuse, and because I'm not so good at small talk, I've now gotten fat.

OK, so you let's say the small talk isn't going well and you're looking for an exit. How do you do so gracefully? For years I've used a desire to return to the snack table as an excuse, and because I'm not so good at small talk, I've now gotten fat.

||
Per the thread the other day, Brian Beutler taking a position pretty similar to mine re: "Economic Despair."
|>

I just point up and say, "Look. Is that Skylab?" and walk away while they look.

I actually just had a very pleasant party at my great-grand-boss's place: she had all the managers she supervises for dinner/heavy appetizers, with partners where applicable. So lots of people I didn't know well from the office.

You know what I actually enjoy at parties like that? Loony attention hogs. There's always someone who wants a riveted audience as they monologue, and I'm usually happy to feed them straight lines. I usually don't like working with people like that, but sitting back and watching them do their tap dance routine is as entertaining as any other way of spending an evening.

How do you do so gracefully?

"I'm getting another drink"; "I think I see someone"; "I'm going to keep circulating!"

Or if you see someone else you like or at least don't hate, you can just make a joyful noise at their presence, call out their name, maybe raise an arm or two, and leave your current conversation with no goodbye, or the briefest of nods. As I write it out it seems like it should be rude but I don't think it is.

Or you could mine from Derek Jacobi in I, Claudius and give them a warm, meaningful stare and say "We'll talk more later."

Chris O'Dowd had a good line for this in the quite good Get Shorty adaptation he was in, costarring Ray Romano - "This bears further discussion!"

"Justify your existence. I mean, fundamentally, what are you that's any use to anyone?"

I have given pleasure to the world by having such a great ass!

"Bud, some might say that's a pretty shallow argument."

Well, some might say I'm a pretty shallow guy. But a shallow guy with a great ass!

Cats don't even have asses. Just butts.

40: That is all puns.

The truly elegant way to extricate yourself from a dull conversation is to get so dull and tiresome that the other person makes an excuse to leave. Not only do you get to save your excuse lines, but you've also made a dull person feel interesting.

59: Thanks. I'm glad someone is noticed.

Haven't we been saying "the late 20th century" since we were in that era? What throws me is "the late 1900s."

No idea how that got in the wrong thread.

I assume people have seen Inigo Montoya's guide to networking:

Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

Polite Greeting
Name
Relevant Personal Link
Manage Expectations

"Heard any good small talk lately?"

64: Yes, but for me that's a funny-always joke.

||

He retained exclusive control over the soap, paper, cotton, milk, butter, and matchmaking industries.

Back before Tinder.

||

Got something in the mail yesterday which said my access card had been issued, and it said it was from my employer or my employers logo was all over it. It was basically marketing for Travelers and a liberty Mutual Insurance letting me know that I was eligible for a discount. There was a footnote saying that my employer was not the sponsors of the plan.

We used to get e-mails about discounts at work, but this just pisses me off that they send this. I'm assuming they shared my address with the insurance companies? Or else, they get a cut of any insurance I buy. It feels like an invasion of my privacy. I wish I could figure out a legal violation that I could report them for.

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Sounds scammy too

Report it to IT as phishing.

I wish I could figure out a legal violation that I could report them for.

Whether or not you can find a violation, it might be worth letting the office of your state insurance commissioner know that its going on. When I used to work at an insurance company, we were genuinely afraid of the insurance commissioner.

69: I also recently got some kind of mail marketing closely associating itself with my large-employer benefits package - life insurance or something? There were complaints about it in our forums, and it did seem to be something management had accepted with the benefits.

I occasionally get emails about meeting with a "retirement advisor" or someone with a job that sounds like that, and they give the impression that they're associated with the administrator of my employer's retirement plan. Since I'm in denial about retirement planning beyond contributing as much as I possibly can to my account each year, I generally ignored those emails until a separate email about phishing came out that mentioned a retirement advice scam circulating via email. The next time I got that email I read it much more closely and there was no actual connection (email, website, etc.) that I could find between the "retirement advisor" company and either my employer or the real retirement account administrator.

The truly elegant way to extricate yourself from a dull conversation is to get so dull and tiresome that the other person makes an excuse to leave. Not only do you get to save your excuse lines, but you've also made a dull person feel interesting.

I laughed, but in an extremely dull, tiresome way.

"They say enamel dries faster but I think its funner to watch a semi-gloss."

I'm at PT this morning, so posting will be late. BYEEEEEEEEE!

68 excels.