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?”
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JackbyDev@programming.dev 10 months agoWhy 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 10 months ago
JackbyDev@programming.dev 10 months 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 10 months 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 10 months ago
lightnsfw@reddthat.com 10 months 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 10 months 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.
milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Well put.
lightnsfw@reddthat.com 10 months 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 10 months 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.