A history buff friend of mine said that the art of medieval fencing was lost completely. At some point, the last person who really knew how to do it had died.
There are old treatises that describe the art, and people have learned a lot from them, starting historical fencing clubs and instructional YouTube channels. But embodied artforms like fencing can’t be translated entirely into books and then come out again intact. There are subtleties that can only be transmitted by a living teacher to a living student.
Much of this expertise will never be rediscovered, because nobody needs to get really good at sword fighting anymore. It’s a hobby – no one’s life or legacy depends on mastering this skill, and so the best of it, whatever it was, is gone.
I find this idea of lost knowledge haunting, and I think of it whenever go into Shopper’s Drug Mart, where the art of eye contact between cashier and customer seems to have been lost to time. No matter what you do, they just don’t look at you. If they look up at all, their gaze points off at nothing, somewhere to the side of your head, while they say thank you and give you your receipt without a glimmer of friendliness.
It feels bad, and the company’s branding now reminds me of that bad feeling. Even though I’m a middle-aged man rightly complaining about kids these days, I probably deserve some amount of this bad feeling, because I know I’ve helped hasten the demise of what were once common social graces.
I always had a poor attitude towards social niceties, even when most people didn’t. From childhood on, I rebelled against small talk and proactive smiling, and I thought eye contact was optional until my teenage years. It particularly bothered me when relatives and friends of my parents would ask me what I was learning at school. I knew they couldn’t possibly actually care about my schoolwork, so I took these sorts of inquiries to be a kind of embarrassing play-along game old people enjoy for some reason.
There are other extenuating circumstances in my case, but let’s just say I avoided introductory banter whenever it could be avoided, and didn’t try to understand why people did it.
Once I learned the word “introvert,” I immediately identified with it. It explained why I was so averse to these contrived niceness rituals most other people performed. I was simply a different kind of person, and the normies didn’t understand that.
What I didn’t notice was that I was constantly benefitting from other people’s small talk efforts. Getting to know people was usually hard for me, but the occasional person seemed really easy to talk to. They were friendly and open, and made you feel like you could just say what you thought. Why couldn’t everyone be like that? Somehow I didn’t realize that I was as far from that ideal as anyone, and made no effort whatsoever to become like that.
Recently I came across a series of excellent mini-essays on this same oversight, in the form of Twitter threads, by a writer named Lauren Wilford. She had also found small talk and other social graces to be tiresome, but later came to understand their value in a way I never quite have.
I think the concept of “introversion” impeded my development as a young person, and I think we need to do away with the introvert/extrovert distinction. It made me feel like socializing and social graces were the province of a certain kind of person that I was not.
-Lauren Wilford
These threads are entirely worth reading, but the gist is that social graces are an art whose purpose is to establish an atmosphere in which it feels okay to talk more freely. Small talk, however inane the subject matter, is meant to signal, “It’s okay if you want to talk to me,” and this sort of signaling is vital to a healthy society.
If neither person is able to get the exchange to that next stage of trust and comfort, then the relationship between those people will likely never develop much beyond strangerhood.
In other words, feeling okay with a person you don’t quite know yet is seldom an accident. It’s usually the result of at least one of you practicing the ancient artform of putting people at ease.
Something Good is Going Away
Because I rejected the whole idea of small talk as something for other kinds of people, I only ever felt at ease when the other person took up the burden of cultivating that ease between us. I just didn’t get how it worked.
What finally made it clear was noticing that something good had gone away from many everyday sorts of interactions. Experiences like the ones I’ve been having at the drug store gave ominous hints at what a society looks like when it begins to abandon the art of social graces en masse.
Due to my own cognitive problems and obtuse nature, I was an early de-adopter of the artform, but apparently the smartphone-reared generations after mine are really not getting it:
Even though I was born in 1980, I never learned this art as it was practiced by most people around me, and as a result my life is still quite constrained by social trepidation. I can navigate most situations, but I still feel fundamentally unequipped for meeting new people, or even making conversation with not-quite-friends, so I still tend to delay or avoid situations requiring that, to my detriment. I just don’t know how to navigate those initial exchanges smoothly. I rush through introductions and re-acquaintances instead of exploring them. Then we lapse into awkward silence unless the other person takes the reins (which is increasingly less common) or I say something about how it’s really hot out today.
I could write a book on the damage this oversight has caused to my own life, but I know it affects the other party too. I can only imagine how many people have felt awkward, rejected, or just uneasy in their interactions with me because I didn’t know how to put them at ease, or that it was my responsibility to try. Even relationships with many friends and family members have a certain extra distance that I know is my fault.
The secondary effects are probably even further-reaching. I’ve declined so many invitations, I’ve bailed on interviews, parties, and meetups. I can’t guess how many friendships never happened, and how many opportunities I avoided because ordinary social situations felt like minefields to me, all because I rejected a skillset once thought essential to survival.
Taking up the Ancient Art
We’re a long way from the complete loss of this art. But the trend is clear. Fewer people can do it well, and more eschew it entirely. There aren’t as many people modeling it for others. Encountering an old master is rarer.
Just as nobody needs to get good at sword fighting again, our communications technologies allow people to get by without learning the face-to-face arts. But just getting by is a grim standard, as I can tell you from experience. A whole society white-knuckling its face-to-face interactions like I did would be a new type of dystopia.
At the age of 44, I’m finally proactively practicing the art of putting others at ease. I’m watching how others do it and trying their moves. Examples still abound if you look for them, especially in older people.
What’s been most exciting is seeing how big a deal one single expression of this art can make. A pleasant interaction can easily make your day, and they’re pretty easy to make happen. You just have to offer something, some warm words to respond to.
People really are put at ease by those little bits of banter — lighthearted comments, easy questions, and reassuring smiles. You can see them relax and open. Sometimes the other person doesn’t pick up the offer. They just go “hmm, yeah” or they smile self-consciously and try to get through the interaction. But I get it, because I’m that guy too.
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I'm David, and Raptitude is a blog about getting better at being human -- things we can do to improve our lives today.
{ 59 Comments }
really helped me see the ‘other side’ as i am an ‘initiator’ and have recently become more mindful of being insensitive or overpowering… this has made me feel better about being the first to gently be friendly! x
We appreciate your tireless efforts!
Interesting perspective! I regularly try to talk to the people around me in many public situations. My wife calls me her Emotional Support Extrovert.
I love when I get someone else to engage and I get to experience a new set of stories, perspectives, attitudes, histories, accents, etc. The common pleasant interactions really make my day. Even when I engage with someone who I likely would have avoided (if I’d magically known who they were beforehand), it somehow still adds fun texture my day: an interesting story to think and talk about.
The downsides of this kind of small talk and engagement are ridiculously low (for me), though I recognize that they do take effort and potentially drain some people’s “social battery” as I’ve heard some people call it.
I just recently moved and it’s MUCH more common for strangers to initiate and engage in this way in my new town (in the US Pacific Northwest), and I’m loving it. Feels like I belong here.
I find the downsides are pretty small too, when I do make a point of talking to someone. Being relatively inexperienced at it I can’t always think of something to say, but the more I do this the more natural it feels.
The social battery thing is real, but for me the only thing that really drains it is when the person keeps going on and on and just won’t let the exchange end. Most people have a sense of how much is too much though.
Thanks for this. I have been lucky to have deep conversations with two strangers on our current road trip through the Yukon. The trust they showed when they shared their stories with me touched me deeply. I will remember them both long after the trip is a distant memory. Society is really suffering from this lack of connection. It might be one of the few things that will save us once all else falls apart.
When I think about all of my travels, it is definitely the people that stay in my memory. The landscapes are nice, but they’re not the most memorable part by a long shot.
I also blame the Boomers (of which I am one, although I never had children) and subsequent generations for falling prey to the “stranger danger” trope (granted, with SOME justification) that taught their children NEVER to talk to strangers. Now those same children have grown into adults who STILL can’t talk to strangers, and sometimes not even to people they know.
I too am a recovering introvert. When I interact with clerks, I address them by name if they’re wearing a name tag and ask them how they’re doing. It often snaps them to attention because they’re not used to being “seen”. At the end of the transaction, rather than just saying the generic “Thanks”, I say “Thank you (name) for looking after me today.” Another shot of recognition, of being seen as a person instead of as a cipher. You mentioned in your article that interactions like that can make your day. I take on that it’s my opportunity to make the other person’s day as well. It’s certainly more fun than being a grumpy old man (I’m 75).
I do the same, Brian. It always elicits a smile, and gets me recognized the next time.
And if I see someone on the street wearing something really nice, if I can do it without getting in their way I’ll say something like “I like your hat” or “That’s a beautiful shawl.” Male, female, young, old, it doesn’t matter. They always appreciate it, and sometimes it leads to a brief conversation, usually if the item belonged to a parent or is special in some other way. I can get away with it because I am an eccentric old lady of 85.
My husband does this with people who are walking dogs. If he sees someone with a dog, no matter how ugly the canine, he will enthusiastically say, “great dog!”. People love their dogs, so this almost always causes them to beam with pride.
The name tags are there for a reason!
As a retail worker I do not like it when people all me by my name. No, we are not friends and I don’t want to have a conversation with you. Just get what you came here for and move on so the person behind you can checkout and go. The name tag is not there so you can call me by name, it is there for accountability on my part.
Yes, we can be friendly but this is a transactional engagement, not a social one. A quick hi, how are you or other nicety is all that is required.
Chinese Proverb…
A man without a smiling face,
Must not open a shop
This response might sound harsh and might embody the extreme end of worker experience but I understand it.
I am deeply troubled by the lack of recognition or acknowledgement of working conditions for today’s front-line staff in David’s (hi David) original post, in a Shoppers Drug Mart of all places, which is owned by a monopoly who has leaned extreme into anti-worker conduct (I won’t go into this here).
The exact location may have been beside David’s point in this discussion, but mine is that practicing one’s social skills and then pinning the “dying of a lost art” onto an individual store clerk in 2025, and then feeling uncomfortable and owed something because the staff did not perform expected emotional labour when their wages are barely feeding and housing themselves compared to wage value 10-20 years ago, this article is missing a huge chunk of the wider picture.
Yes I agree that your working conditions diatribe here is definitely beside the point. Customer service in particular and live human interaction in general is declining in quality across the board, as anyone can see. Even with all of my personal problems, I worked for six dollars an hour and no benefits in a grocery store owned by a national company, and we met a much higher service standard than today’s. Face-to-face interaction was a much stronger cultural value at the time.
I think this is a “two things can be true” situation.
I think you’re right that power imbalances and corporate rules/surveillance are affect all customer-cashier interactions at these kinds of stores. David probably should have acknowledged that tension. I suppose it’s understandable that he forgot: going by Manitoba’s minimum wage history, he may have worked his last $6/hr shift a quarter-century ago, when he was 18-19; if so, he doesn’t really know the reality of working that kind of job as an adult (as many workers do to afford basic survival). I don’t either, but I assume it sucks.
That said, I agree with David in finding those concerns irrelevant to the larger topic. Making the effort to “put others at ease” is pretty much always worth it, no matter the situation. Whether you’re a cashier, a hairstylist, a doctor, a coworker, a customer, an in-law, a classmate or a police officer, you *will* have more pleasant and interesting days if you learn to chat with all kinds of people, without your fear or ego or resentment getting in the way. Cashiers shouldn’t feel pressured to act friendly because it’s good for Loblaws Inc.’s bottom line? Okay, sure. But both cashiers and customers should strive to be friendly with each other *anyway*, because it’ll improve their mood and make their communities better. And, frankly, just because it’s more challenging than staring off into space! Challenge is good! Building skills is good!
It’s even arguably THE correct thing to do as an anticapitalist, given that the exploitation you’re talking about is literally facilitated by our increasingly individualistic society. You can’t build much solidarity without the basic ability to relate to other people. And while yes, *of course* people outside of your class/job *should* see you as people and support your cause politically, that will be much more likely if they’ve had thousands of tiny moments of eye contact and conversation with you over the years, right? It certainly can’t hurt.
But yeah, it’s definitely not all on workers (and David isn’t saying it is). Customers need to step it up too. I’m going to read those Threads threads and then start practicing.
There’s a character in the sitcom “Superstore” who wears a different nametag every day because she hates customers feeling entitled to know her actual name.
I get where you’re coming from, but reading someone’s nametag aloud also foregrounds the power imbalance between you (since only THEY need to wear a name tag in the first place). Hopefully you at least introduce yourself to them.
The “Hi, how are you?” as you pass by someone has always bugged me. I always give a cheery “Hi!” instead of saying “fine,” but people don’t really hear the Hi!. They think I said “fine,” since that’s what someone is demanding when they say, howareyou? I did hear someone say “howzit going?” the other day, and I liked that. I may give that a try. A nice smile is much better than a hihowareyou anyway. Or make a nice comment about a specific thing. Show you spent more than 3 seconds on the comment.
A bare greeting is a tough one because it doesn’t really give the other person anything to work with. Most likely they will just say “Hi” back and then the loop closes. In Leil Lowndes’s book she has a rule “Never the naked hello,” which just means you should add something else to it if you can — “Hello, I’m your new neighbor” or “Hi, I was just admiring your amazing hat.” Then there’s actually a topic, if they want to engage.
I agree with your thoughts entirely (I have a few years on you – my daughter is your age) but I sense that as human beings we are becoming more and more isolated from one another. I think social media is largely to blame for this. Our worlds have shrunk to the size of a mobile phone or iPad where the height of social interaction is a bunch of “likes” or, very rarely, an emoji or even more rarely a brief comment. Not one of these even comes close to a smile from a stranger or a few words exchanged with a friend. So I agree with your message – everyone get out – smile, show you care and even share laughter. Oh – and get off social media. I must practise what I preach …… so signing off!
Social media does seem to satisfy some kind of superficial need for contact, but it reduces it to text and emoji. There’s no live engagement, no real-time adjustment to the presence and feelings of another, which I think is the part that we really need.
Oh my gosh, as an introvert growing up in an overly friendly small town, I felt sure I was the only one. This passage was so deja vu I thought for a microsecond you might have plagiarized my younger brain:
From childhood on, I rebelled against small talk and proactive smiling, and I thought eye contact was optional until my teenage years. It particularly bothered me when relatives and friends of my parents would ask me what I was learning at school. I knew they couldn’t possibly actually care about my schoolwork, so I took these sorts of inquiries to be a kind of embarrassing play-along game old people enjoy for some reason.
You should read the twitter threads I linked. I think you’d find a lot that resonates.
Thanks David, this was good to read as I feel the same way. I’ve always been pretty hard on myself about it ever since having that realization (for my part in the disappearance of the art and also because of how hard it makes life feel after neglecting those skills my whole life).
But as an art lover I like the perspective of treating social interaction as an art to practice. I don’t know if I’ll ever be a master, but consciously working on it over the course of years will absolutely bring improvement.
Simply more awareness of the value of these skills, as you have described so well, would make our society a better place.
It is tough to be outside of this norm, but we’re not stuck outside it. There are opportunities to practice every day and it seems to be rewarding the whole way.
This was a great column! You have hit the nail on the head! I’m also a child of the ’50’s and I think most of us just learned how to do “small talk” as a natural part of living. But as I watch my granddaughters I’ve noticed the girls that have the most trouble even talking to their Grandma are the children who were given iphones & ipads from a very early age. So I tend to blame it on social media. Like Sara’s husband I notice dogs. And children. Especially coming out of church, I’ll say, “What a beautiful child! How old is he?” And the proud parent beams and we begin a chat. My husband noticed cars, “Great car! Do you like it?” and that would cause men to enter into a conversation. Even if it was to complain about the car! Thanks, David, I’m handing this blog of yours to my children and lots of friends. It was great.
Hey this is a great little piece of writing. I am working with young adults who are trying to build their skills for adult life and trying to help them make a connection to another person to ask for a job or to ask for a date or to ask for help is really hard work. I like the idea that you can make a choice about how you interact with other people rather than it just be ‘this is how I am’. Will definitely have a read and a discussion of your piece with them.
All of the this rings true for me, but I also think an overlooked culprit is the decline of paying cash. When I use my debit card or phone, we both just stare at the machine until it beeps for “transaction complete”. With cash, you and another human being are forced to work together coordinating the physical handoff of cash and change — which involves a fair bit bit of vulnerability!
This is a fantastic article and very relatable to me. I wish it were easier to learn this skill. One thing that made a big impression on me was taking improv comedy classes – there are concepts in improv comedy that are very applicable to everyday social interactions. The concept of ‘making and accepting offers’ in particular.
I used to worry a lot about what I would say in a conversation. Sometimes I would think of something to say and then think, nah, that’s too boring. But since learning about the concept of offers in improv, I realise that *anything* I say can be an offer – and I’ve noticed that sometimes when I say the thing that I think is a bit boring, it will prompt someone else to say something that blooms into an interesting conversation. When that happens I always feel a little bit proud – like, that was an enjoyable conversational exchange and I facilitated it by just being a little bit brave to say something that might have fallen flat.
I was an excruciatingly shy child and have battled to overcome that. Now in my 30s I get by fine most of the time, but improv still fills me with fear and dread – and yet has been one of the most valuable things I have ever done.
A bit like how meditation is like a way to deliberately practice your ability to choose where you put your attention – I feel like improv is a way to deliberately practice your ability to find things to say to others, and to generously build on what other people say to you.
Interesting post. I’ve never really been shy but was not encouraged to make friends as a child. I spent a great deal of time playing by myself. I have older siblings but did not play with them much. I did always worry about what people thought of me, if they liked me. I discovered alcohol and suddenly could talk to anyone about anything. Unfortunately this switched on my alcoholism and you can guess what happened. I have now been sober over 35 years. I am in a recovery program of which fellowship is a huge part of my sobriety. I learned very early on to say hi to people and introduce myself at meetings. A habit I still exercise. My husband teases me that I can talk to anyone about anything. This includes cashiers at drug stores and people waiting in line for roller coasters at amusement parks.
I hate to say it but alcohol was what helped me make friends in my 20s. Without it I think I would have become very isolated. It definitely has all kinds of downsides though and can just as easily destroy relationships.
Isn’t weed better in most all regards, including these ?
I appreciate this perspective David (and I always love your photo captions). I wonder if there’s regional variation in this. I moved from a medium sized city filled with white collar workers (120,000 – these are Canadian standards) to a much smaller one just an hour away composed of more blue collar and rural people, and the friendliness difference was quite marked. I still find this to be true a decade later as I often go back to the larger city. I notice the high school students working in the grocery store are quite friendly and pleasant. When I have to go to Toronto it feels like I’m surrounded by zombies.
There’s definitely a city-rural divide in my experience. I grew up in a small town and don’t like small towns generally, but in a small town small talk is unavoidable. You would constantly bump in to people you know and have to develop some ability to manage those impromptu conversations.
I had the best day recently just from short but positive exchanges from locals the other day! I too used to hate small talk, but see the value in small exchanges with locals. I work for myself and am by myself most of the day, which I love, but I really appreciate those small exchanges and smiles with the local shop keeper, people on the street saying thank you for making room for them on the footpath, or saying hi to neighbours to as you’re leaving home. This is my community and I’ve really come to value and understand how much joy these engagements provide me. I don’t think some people realise what they are missing out on, I suppose they see it as an inconvenience, but when you’re younger you do tend to think you know everything hehe
I guess I’m a variation on the theme: I’m terrible at or at least a little lost at initiating an exchange. But then once the initial gap is closed I’m usually open and really engaged in the conversation. So calling myself shy has never felt right, but I’m definitely a reserved person. Until I’m not.
But the real reason I came to comment is because I wanted to thank David for being so open about himself. (Actually, he’ll hopefully be reading this, so it should really read “Thank you, David, for being so open about yourself.”) I know it’s long been a hallmark of his writing, but it continues to engage me personally and to counter some of the feeling of disconnect with a shared human experience that seems to come with much of contemporary life.
I am also pretty comfortable once a conversation is happening, but getting it going is something I need to improve still.
This was a bit of a personal one but I was pretty confident that many people could relate to it.
Long-time writer, first-time commenter. Small talk is definitely a skill to be practiced and like a dying art, it is something we need to pass on. I carve letters in stone and I’m part of a well-established lineage of training under a master stretching back over 100 years. The British government have recently disincentivised small businesses taking on apprentices so I fear the old skills might be lost.
I can tell this article resonated with a lot of people because they can either see this “standoffishness” in themselves or in someone in their family or social circle. There’s someone in my family like this, who’s smart, motivated, has good taste and is polite, but they lack the ability to have small talk and put people at ease. It’s really fundamental in building a relationship. Every time I go and visit, it always feels like we’ve just met for the first and starting from zero. It’s been around ten years now and I feel I’d have more a connection with someone I’d have a nice chat with even after five or ten minutes! It’s such a shame.
Great article, David. Thank you!
> Every time I go and visit, it always feels like we’ve just met for the first and starting from zero. It’s been around ten years now and I feel I’d have more a connection with someone I’d have a nice chat with even after five or ten minutes!
It’s helpful to hear the perspective from the other side of this problem. I have no idea what people think of me but I suspect some of them experience something like this with me. I have particular trouble with acquaintances — people I know too well not to talk to when I see them but with whom I can’t think of anything to say. I just go blank.
I find an easy way to make small talk is to compliment someone on something they are wearing. Nine times out of ten, it’s some old favorite, and you can see them feel good that someone else likes it, too. They feel seen and their good taste is appreciated. It’s so easy to give someone a light moment with just a few words.
i am also late to this party.
i used to be very shy, now my kids tease me that i talk to everybody.
still its tiring.
I’ve been reading this blog for almost a decade now and this is one of my favorite posts.
I’ve always struggled to connect to people around me. I’m not very good at “reading” people, and when I can’t figure out what they’re thinking, I tend to assume the worst. Recently, I came to a similar realization as you, namely that some of these things which I thought were immutable properties of myself were actually choices that I make every day and could start making differently. Seeing this post, it felt like you had read my mind!
Like you, I’ve always hated small talk. I thought that it was just conversational fluff that distracted from more meaningful dialog, but now I realize that I’ve had it exactly backwards.
Thank you for the insight!
I love your posts David and THIS one is up my alley. I am a retired grocery checker of 40 years. I was very good at my job and the social skill that is now in the rear view mirror. It happened progressively. People once wrote checks. I saw their names (memorized many) and could address them in a personal fashion. When self-scan came along, there was far fewer interactions, and far fewer “checkers”. The need for speed became the battle cry in the industry. I miss those good days, and enjoy that I was a part of a good era.
That’s a good point — there are many other elements that tied us together, and the general course of technology is to reduce the practical need for personal interaction. But the spiritual/personal need for human interaction is a deeply human instinct that doesn’t go away.
Thanks for a great article! it made me feel very lucky because in the small town where I live, and the larger one nearby (in the north of England) people are generally chatty and outgoing and it is very usual for me to spend a few minutes chatting in every shop I go into (even checkout staff in supermarkets are friendly). This is true irrespective of age – but as some people have already hinted at, you have to know how to start the conversation – and also, understand if it’s not a good time to chat. You can’t go wrong with warm, straightforward politeness. Small talk, warmth, courtesy, these are the things that create places people want to be and we all have our part to play in generating them.
I am a city guy but this is definitely one thing small towns have going for them. You bump into people you know much more often and so you have to develop the skills and values to navigate that.
Fellow introvert here. Just wanted to add another perspective – small talk can save lives. In his book, Language in Thought and Action – 5th edition (1991), S.I. Hayakawa speaks about the language of social cohesion. In chapter 6, he recalls being a Japanese Canadian on a train platform in Wisconsin, in 1942, acutely aware of the unease of other people around him. It was around the time when Japanese Americans were rounded up into internment camps. Not surprisingly, the story feels just as fresh and useful today.
Thanks for this example. It’s a good reminder that feelings like unease are instinctive signals that we might be in danger. Humans are always aware that other humans are potentially dangerous, and a successful “it’s okay if you want to talk to me” signal could make a difference between hostility and non-hostility.
I don’t know if this is a phenomenon happening universally. I think it’s a big city thing. Maybe the more you are forced to be around strangers constantly, the less energy you have for each stranger. On the east coast, you get the life story of your cashiers, lol. When I go rent a laser level or pick up some construction screws the guys at the rental place or cashiers want to know what I’m going to doing with it and where am I building and what for and when did I start, and then later I run into someone in the Superstore parking lot who wants to talk to me about my truck and do I pull a trailer with it and what’s the engine size and what do I use it for, and it turns out they’ve heard of me and my building project. When I go to Toronto, people are like negatively charged particles that repel one another, and I get it because I feel claustrophobic from the constant unending presence of people around me.
There is definitely a big difference between cities and small towns. In small towns it’s basically impossible to live anonymously, because you see the same people everywhere and it would be weird to have only transactional exchanges for them. In a small town, these skills are still necessary survival skills.
I’m autistic and couldn’t help but read this post (and the early linked one about ADHD) and think you could be, too. I used to think very similarly to you, and in my late twenties put a lot of effort into developing my small talk skills and attempting to see their value for other people. I don’t regret doing it and still believe that for some people it can be important social lubricant. But what I find (I live in a city in the UK) is that being open with people, and especially asking disarming questions, the kind that make people feel really observed, are way more important for engendering trust and opening interesting dialogue. But only when both of the people involved have time. Otherwise, I think small talk especially for retail workers, is something that can be harmful. You don’t need to connect with them and they’re seeing possibly hundreds of people a day. Instead I think what you may be lamenting is a lack of politeness? I also don’t know about this idea that small talk is necessary for a healthy society. That’s way too broad IMO. I tolerate more small talk than I’d like to at the community garden because I recognise it’s an important aspect of the space. I do the same in the countryside or when meeting friends families. But there’s no need in shops etc. We don’t really have that culture here in the UK and I dare say we are no more unhealthy as a cultural unit than the USA, where it is common and expected. British people hate it, it’s like harassment (that’s not just me!). And what about countries like Finland? Notorious for not tolerating small talk?
I thought someone might suggest this. I’ve taken all the assessments and I just don’t fit the rubric. There are some shared traits, however, like sensitivity to noise and overwhelm from too much stimulus.
When it comes to where and when small talk is appropriate, figuring that out is part of what I mean by developing skill at it. There are appropriate times to try to engage somebody, and appropriate degrees of engagement. I don’t try to engage cashiers in conversations and I don’t refer to them by name. But there is a middle ground between that and trying not to interact at all.
I do agree with you up to a point Jim – but saying that ‘British people hate’ small talk in shops – really?? That isn’t my experience at all. Maybe my particular part of northern England is different from where you live, but small talk in shops is very much alive and well here, and very often it is initiated by the staff themselves – it’s just what happens. And it’s not just local people either, visitors chat as well. I think it’s a good thing, it makes life warmer. I’m on first name terms with several people locally simply through talking to them at the shops.
Excellent article!
Living in Palestine taught me what social generosity REALLY is. There was such a sense of warmth, connection, and care in so many more casual interactions. There was a poetic call and response to many everyday activities and achievements (even taking a shower). And it wasn’t just for show. The warmth was (most of the time) very real, and felt.
Even as an introvert, I felt more comfortable there, with all the niceties, than I’ve felt almost anywhere else.
Coming back to America felt like a cold blast of garbage air. Even small talk often had a hidden agenda of sizing up people’s status and whether they are useful or not. In Oklahoma where I live, as a kid, a lot of it was older men telling me to smile more. It was exhausting. I was bullied constantly at school. Eating at a restaurant alone the other day, a guy started up a conversation with me and then started that weird thing some guys do where they try to size you up and subtly criticize and change how you are. Yes, even complete strangers. So exhausting.
It’s such a relief when I find people who are comfortable no matter what your demeanor is. People I can just fall silent with, comfortably. People who don’t demand that I feel a different way than I feel and express it differently than I’m expressing it. (One woman at a retreat even said she appreciated people like me who held space for silence and introspection.)
So, yeah, there are different kinds of small talk. The Palestinian kind is like a warm bath. The American kind is often like being doused with cold water.
But as I care less and less what anyone thinks, I don’t mind cutting off the annoying small talk and engaging in the innocent kind, even if it’s a pale shadow of what I know it can be since I had the privilege of living in Palestine.
from a prior comment “And what about countries like Finland? Notorious for not tolerating small talk?” hello, estonia calling in… :p i suppose i’m grateful there’s no smalltalk *obligation* here on grocery store runs (just the basic hellos-thankyous-goodbyes), especially as someone with rather limited social battery working as a cashier myself and needing some inward-faced respite from being people-faced for a living…
but the small gardening supplies shop i work at sometimes lends to more time for potential wholesome fleeting connections – on some occasions someone or other (usually an elderly person – understandably cos not all might have many people at all to Actually Talk to in their day-to-day!) will end up talking to me about their life a bit or whatnot, as they wait for the next bus downtown or for the rain to stop or whatever, and it can be quite heartwarming sometimes :,) i do still eschew direct eye contact haha but do make it a point to say the hellos & goodbyes and do still seem to come across polite based on the occasional compliments i get
but in my day-to-day i suppose i’d have a hard time getting over feeling like some kind of impostor if i were to put in more energy for interacting with strangers and trying not to come across as too weird especially within this less small-talky culture haha, alongside the aforementioned need to balance out the sometimes incessant people-facedness of my current job – but can really depend on the social environment too
The term ‘ambivert’ doesn’t get enough recognition, as this is where i would place myself. Starting out in life i was more introverted; through my late teens and 20s and 30s definitely more extroverted; and now at 44 am somewhere in between (i.e. an ambivert, with aspects of both). At a more reflective stage in life, i might drink and go out less… but i still enjoy social interactions and engagements. I keep on hearing ‘scientific research’ about how each individual is born introverted or extroverted, but i don’t think i agree with that. Maybe one child has certain factors to initially push them to one side or the other, but i don’t believe anyone is ‘born one or the other’. I find that sometimes hardened introverts can be almost boastful of that persona… but that can with various losses!!! A conversation doesn’t have to be an hour long discussion… but as with me today on the train, simply asking the woman next to me what she was reading as i was about to exit – and it was a nice little interaction for both of us. (It is key though to be able to respect people and not invade their personal space or be awkward)!
Fantastic post David, and l never really gave it much thought. l have never had a problem with these social interactions but now l understand why others don’t.