The Art of Conversation, 3rd period

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

Jon nodded to them as they settled. "Up until now, we've been largely trying to talk about our own things and connect that way, but apparently one of the principles of conversation is 'embracing small talk'." Did that sound as horrible to you as it did to him?

"So today we're going to talk about the weather. And only the weather." Definitely not anything to do with this weekend. "And we're going to talk about the weather for as long as we're able."

This might be a really short class. Unless someone got Jon going on a tangent about climate change.

Comments

Re: Class activity

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"I...I have no idea. I thought it was a purpose of its own. Not that I've ever really understood smalltalk. I, um. I wonder if we should talk about other things, then, or stay on the weather."

Re: Class activity

[witchoftheflesh]

"Nobody likes small talk, right?" he asked. "It's just safe conversational topics that nobody can be offended by when you don't know the other person. It serves as a way to get people talking to each other, but I never thought it was meant to be the end of it, unless you don't have much time or you're deliberately playing it safe. But I don't think anybody really wants to sit around all day talking about the weather, or the local sports team, or the state of the roads. It's just like Luma said - a way to test the waters to see if you want to keep talking about more interesting things."

He shrugged. "Pretty sure that learning how to make small talk and still keep it engaging and interesting would be a useful skill."

Re: Class activity

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"I, um. I always assumed that people enjoyed it. They always seem to want to do it," Jon confessed.

Re: Class activity

[witchoftheflesh]

"I don't really think most people like it?" he said. "But, I mean, I spent almost my whole life in a magical Grove with my family, I'm not an expert in any means. But I think other than the people who don't have any thoughts that run deeper than the kind of things you talk about for small talk, nobody else really enjoys it. It's just the polite thing to do when you're talking to people you don't really know, so you can't accidentally step on a conversational landmine in the first five minutes of knowing someone."

Re: Class activity

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"I suppose I just thought it was one of those things about people I never understood," Jon confessed. There were a lot of those. "I thought people just enjoyed that sort of thing."