Small Talk

I've never really been a fan of small talk. There was a time when I accepted that small talk was necessary and during that time I thought I was the queen of small talk. Isn't it lovely today? How have you been? I hope you're feeling better.

That's all well and good from time to time, but I've been living in Guelph for four years now and I don't really know anyone well enough to have deep, meaningful conversations with them. And those that I do know well enough, are not interested in having deep, meaningful conversations. I'm at my breaking point. My distaste for small talk is so extreme, it has caused me to avoid talking to people altogether.

The answer, you must be thinking, is just to initiate a deep, meaningful conversation (or DMC) as soon as  possible in order to satiate my hunger for DMCs. However, this is easier said than done.

Case in point #1: My husband ran into an old childhood friend a while back. When asked how he'd been, the friend's response was, "Not good. I was molested as a kid and now I'm a gay schizophrenic." No joke. This actually happened and was literally the first thing out of his mouth beyond "Hi'. My husband hasn't seen him since.

I do not want to be that person. The one who awkwardly blurts out the craziest stuff that's ever happened to them without warning. BUT....I just may be that person.

I really have to restrain myself quite a bit from scaring people. For example, today on the bus I saw someone that lived down the hall from me in first year. We'd only talked once or twice during that year and since then have only managed to weakly smile at each other in passing. In the past year, there's been no recognition of each other's existence whatsoever. I tried to remedy this situation by adding him as a friend on Facebook with the message, "Take this as a sign that it's ok to say hi when we pass each other." It may have been worded better, but you get the idea. A little creepy but clear in intentions. We have seen each other many times since then. He accepted the request, but avoids eye contact even more than before. So, I see this guy and really wanted to be like, "Hey! How's it goin? Sorry, I didn't notice you at first....I just had a therapy session so, you know, I'm kind of in my own head right now. You know, I see you all the time but you never say hi. Why is that?"

I bit my tongue. And avoided eye contact like the plague.

But why can't we just say what we're thinking? Why do people take it so badly? What's wrong with walking up to an aquaintance and asking what their views on life are? Why can't I pick a person at random and ask them to tell me their life story?

So...I guess what I'm getting at is that I just want someone to come up to me and just tell me something meaningful for once. And it doesn't have to be meaningful to me to be meaningful. I want people I can hang out with and just say whatever's on my mind, and have them feel comfortable doing the same with me. I want to stop wasting time on small talk, and start spending time on BIG talk.