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Comment by tomcam | Hacker News Reader

The phrase “small talk“ pains me. I never ask a question for which I am not interested in the answer, and I think if you listen carefully before you say something about the weather you might hear something deep and genuine that you would have otherwise missed.

Now I usually do ask how the other person is, but I am always listening for the real answer. I never ask it without wanting to hear what they say. (And if I’m feeling bad or don’t want to hear their answer I do not ask at all.) Usually they give automatic responses, but if they don’t, I try to give them the respect of questioning or agreeing with them in a way that they know they were heard.

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Salient point about listening/reading their response, another tool in the social/life tool belt.

Re: weather, its not really about that, it's just opening the door that more often than not leads to a pleasant, random conversation with a total stranger.

I believe the significance or relevance of the "weather topic" depends on location. There are some places where the weather never really changes, and is indeed unremarkable, like southern California. But some regions can have drastic changes in weather, and some places the weather can kill. For example in the midwest US the weather can go from blizzard conditions to sunny and warm in 24 hours or a strong storm can destroy crops and ruin livelyhoods for thousands of farms. In tornado alley a "pop up" severe thunderstorm can throw off tornadoes and level towns. As someone who's lost family members to tornadoes, the weather is a topic I'm interested in.

> I never ask a question for which I am not interested in the answer

I also used to have this attitude, until I realized it was handicapping me. The point is to get a conversation going, and sometimes the way people are comfortable doing this is through the banal ritual of asking each other questions they don't really care about the answers for, and faking that they do care. It's illogical, but then again, so apparently is one's desire to just have a connection with somebody rather than nobody. Putting the pressure on yourself to only ask deep and genuine questions of people you don't even know is just going to result in you deciding you have nothing important enough to ask yet, and sitting in awkward silence, or never approaching someone at all. It's the conversational version of "the perfect is the enemy of the good."

> I never ask a question for which I am not interested in the answer

Where I am, its common to say "how are you?" as a stand in for "hello", that is, without the expectation of an answer or even further conversation if you're just greeting someone in passing. Some time ago, I started making a point to actually respond and ask them how they are back, I often do this to cashiers in shops for example. For the most part, they seem to appreciate it. However, lately, I've been caught off guard a bit because there's one guy that works at my gym and he always greets me like that and out of habit, I stop, answer and ask him how he is, but he's not expecting further conversation since he was just expecting me to say "hi". Made for some awkward pauses until I adjusted my behavior to match his :)

There's no such thing as "small talk".

All talk is significant.

If it is anything, "small talk" is talk that you don't mind other people hearing and joining. And if you think about that at a distance, it makes it very big talk indeed.

To me, "small talk" is mundane chit-chat that you do mostly to be polite or to break the ice. "Hi <neighbour>, weathers been awfully cold lately hasn't it? Yes, can't wait till summer. Did you watch the game yesterday? Anyway catch you later!" kind of things.

Yeah. It's small on that level.

But it's not small if that is the conversation that allows someone you both haven't yet met to feel at ease in joining in to chat with you. That makes it powerful, because it leads on to people introducing themselves, more common ground being found, etc.

Also, it might be the only kind of talk that can "break the ice" in the general case. I mean -- imagine replacing small talk with a deep question about politics or science or music theory. It couldn't work so well in general.

That is what I mean about its significance. Almost all of us exist solely because of small talk between our until-then-unknown-to-each-other parents, for example.

"Small" talk is the beginning of almost everything.

I see what you're saying. I agree, if it helps break the ice or is the "introduction" for further conversation, then it serves an important purpose. Even in the case of maintaining some kind of friendliness with a neighbour, that serves a purpose too, I suppose.

I travel a lot for business and end up riding Uber a lot. I go out of my way to stroke up conversations with the Uber drivers. I ask them about their music. How long they have been in the city. Some spots to visit. How they like driving for Uber.

The last question sparks a lot of conversations. Many do it just as a side gig and for flexibility. It’s the only time that you get to talk to complete strangers while they are work for a prolong period of time.

I'm the same way and I've had some of the most amazing conversations of my life with Uber drivers!

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