“Small talk” is actually one of the most powerful tools for connection we have. It’s not meaningless chatter; it’s the doorway into deeper understanding.
The trick isn’t to say the most interesting thing in the room or ask interesting questions, it’s to be interested.
When you ask someone, “How’s your day going?” or “What’s been keeping you busy lately?” and actually listen to their answer, you’re signaling that you care about their world. That’s the quiet magic of small talk: it turns strangers into people, and people into friends.
Start simple. Ask open questions that invite reflection instead of yes or no answers. Things like:
“How’s work treating you this week?”
“What’s something you’ve been enjoying lately?”
“Do you like slow days or do they make you restless?”
Then, build on what they share. Match their tone. Add your own small experiences (“I know what you mean, I kind of love quiet days too”). These little back-and-forth moments help conversations feel easy and balanced.
The value of small talk isn’t in the words themselves, it’s in the attention you give others. Over time, these small exchanges build trust, warmth, and familiarity. They’re how relationships begin, how empathy grows, and how we remind each other that we’re seen.
So don’t underestimate small talk. Practice curiosity. Ask, listen, share. Every person you meet carries a piece of the story you haven’t heard yet, and small talk is how you start uncovering it.
It’s me. I’m one of the great many who needed this. Thank you OP!
My government seems to think otherwise.
Technically that’s down to Imgur. Basically the UK government told Imgur to stop selling children’s data to advertisers and Imgur was like “No, we’re going to keep doing that and you’re blocked”.
But, OFCOM basically said “Okay sure you can block the UK and that will stop you selling any children’s data going forward, but you still sold children’s data in the past, so the fine still stands” and now it’s kinda in limbo because Imgur doesn’t have a UK office so there’s nowhere to extract the money from. However, even if Imgur did introduce age assurance (which is increasingly likely given that Imgur is based in California and California is flirting with age assurance requirements too) and therefore would be in compliance with the Online Safety Act, they would still be fined because they failed to protect children’s data in the past.
I knew imgur was getting bad but that’s ridiculous.
Anyway, Here:
So, how’s the weather?
There has been a month of constant wet drizzle here.
This… makes sense. Thank you
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Another reason to boycott imgur it seems.
Here:
I have no fucking clue how to do small talk. I tend to get too serious too fast and feel very incompetent and overwhelmed with this kind of almost meaningless noise. So it either ends in awkward silence or in me saying something too heavy for that kind of conversation, which tends to make things awkward as well.
Example, option A:
“It’s so nice and warm today.”
“Yeah, but did you know that death rates of sensitive population groups like elderly have increased due to more and intense heatwaves caused by global warming?”Option B:
“It’s so nice and warm today.”
“Yeah.”
[silence]Maybe I should get checked for autism, lol.
Maybe I should get checked for autism, lol.
Def. do that, but also, you just need more practice whether you’re on the spectrum or not.
You are in your own head too much. You have a lot of ideas about big things that are straining at the seams to share with someone so you’re not making it about “making friendly noises” with a stranger or casual acquaintance.
The good news is there’s a surefire cure to this, but again, it takes practice so you don’t forget how to do this one simple trick to making people like you and make friends who will then want to go on to talk about deep things.
ASK QUESTIONS.
They say “Wow that game last night was wild” and you say “Yah? what was your favorite part?”
They say “I hope the weather clears this weekend” you say… NO, NOT DESCRIBING HOW WEATHER WORKS, you ask “What did you have planned?” and so on.
The key here is to set yourself aside. Make it the “Them Show” and they are the star. You are not going to form a lasting friendship by saying the right things at the right time, you won’t get noticed at work by one awesome chat. You do these things by repetition and consistency. Do not “fast forward” in your mind when they are talking, you have to ACTUALLY LISTEN, and set aside whatever is boiling up in your mind to spill out.
If people start associating you with them being able to be the star for a minute, if you make them feel good about sharing their lives, they will start wanting to spend more time with you.
Maybe you should try “medium talk” so you don’t get bored and other randos don’t get weirded out. After a comment about the weather you can say that bc of the nice weather you were hiking/sportsing/otherwise hobbying in [location], and wondered if they’ve been there recently. Or if the weather was shit that you were indoors doing whatever hobby and ask what they tend to do in their free time.
Hobby talk can basically be as superficial or deep as you need it to be, so the conversation can progress from there as needed.
Do you understand on an intellectual (as opposed to instinctive) level which topics are too serious for small talk?
Because if not then start there. If so, then it’s possible to get better by taking your time to reply and think over what you’re about to say so you can back out!
The weather isn’t a topic that will last for long. Maybe you can ask “did you see that crazy rain/wind/hail/whatever” but either the subject is going to change or one of you will segue into “I remember when I was xyz and there was this crazy rain/wind/hail/whatever”.
Conversations are about finding connections and judging what the other person might want to hear. Sometimes there’s no connection though and you’ve just got to bring up something else. Questions are good because they allow the other person to talk :p
Option C:
“It’s so nice and warm today.”
“Nice and warm today?”
If you have an interesting life then you can commandeer small talk and make it interesting. It’s an opportunity to introduce other material.
This is a really good way to get hated if you make every chat about some crazy thing that happened in your life, whether or not it’s real.
People like an occasional wild story but if you’re always “commandeering” small talk, people will avoid you. If you want people to actually enjoy hanging out with you, you have to balance this with a lot more asking questions about them, and making them feel equally important to the interaction.
Yeah. I got over my hangups about small talk when I started working for a well-known people person with a big, room-filling personality. Watching him “work” several people a day, I realized he was just on autopilot, repeating the same lines over and over like an NPC. I realized, “shit, I can do that.”
I tried once an alternative to my current medication. It made me more communicative but it really felt like autopilot (something beside my consciousness) and i hated that.
I saw some mudcrabs the other day. Horrid creatures.
Do you remember what he said? Maybe we can copy
I used to be an adventurer like you. Then I took an arrow in the knee…
“Did you see that ludicrous display last night?”
what was wenger thinking sending walcott on that early?
The thing about Arsenal is, they always try to walk it in!
That is true. See ya later reev.
Mind 'ow you go.
This also acts as a public filter
If you small talk with someone and they positively (or at least don’t treat you weird) … then the person you are small talking to is a decent person who is also open to a bit of communication.
If you small talk with someone and they immediately treat you weird, walk away or just don’t want to deal with you … then chances are, it was a good thing you said something to eliminate any negative interaction.
This is what a lot of people don’t get about small-talk, and OP’s image touches on it, it’s not about educating someone how trains work (looking at you fellow autists) it’s about playing a short game where you gauge each other’s receptiveness to friendliness or a desire to socialize. If your small-talk partner isn’t receptive, has nothing to say and seems disinterested, you take your leave. You say “Hey I gotta run, see ya around!” and just leave it at that.
(Guys, this is also how you talk to girls you don’t know, it’s literally the entirety of volumes of pickup artist bullshit condensed into one paragraph without any weird games or sexist bullshit. Just make small-talk, see if they want to engage back, AND THEN WALK THE FUCK AWAY if they’re icy to you. If they don’t respond, that doesn’t mean they didn’t hear you, and no you don’t get a second chance in this conversation, you will make it worse if you keep trying to talk to someone not interested. I am shocked how hard this is for so many guys to understand.)
Me: being socially anxious and going into panic stations when small talk begins.
Other person: it appears that this is not a decent person.
Imagine saying people have walked away from you mid-talk and you believe others are the problem. Lmao.
*friendly noises
HONK <3
*reciprocal friendly noises
This isn’t a meme
That could be a meme
But it’s a pipe! WTF? I just don’t get art. /s
It’s not a pipe, it’s a picture of a pipe.
This is not philosophy
But I can perceive it, therefore it exists! If not philosophy, then what? /s
This isn’t a meme
That is dada
This isn’t a hobbyhorse
About 1/3 of comms on here fail when I try to post. This space didn’t used to work, does now.
I post, the screen refreshes taking me back to a blank entry page. 🤷🏻 Someone looked into a few that I complained about and I’m not blocked. No idea.
Kay
It’s disturbing how many single women put on their dating profiles how much they hate small talk. Like, how else do you get to know somebody?
The complaint is about guys who want to text forever and not move forward. Heard that a lot when I was dating hot and heavy. Seems lots of guys are either just lonely and wanting to talk on dating apps or who aren’t bold enough to ask for the date in a timely manner.
You have to establish, quickly, that there aren’t any screaming red flags, then ask for the first date. If dating isn’t what you’re there for, go find something else to do.
It’s also a filter for wishy-washy men. Sorry guys, women like men who are decisive. Which a lot of men take to mean “be a controlling jerk”. Not the same, not even close.
So I’m old and greying now (in my late 30s), have no major stake in this but I’d like to reframe something you’ve said from a different perspective based on life experience.
I disagree that women like men who are decisive. It’s going to sound like pedantry but I think that’s too broad. That’s not a message that helps young men find a good way.
In my experience, women like it when men are thoughtfully and respectfully decisive. Men are complex, sophisticated, have good days, bad days, strong days, days when they feel weak. Days when they’re decisive and days when they are not. I don’t think we can split men into two camps - decisive and indecisive - without oversimplifying. A man can be decisive one day and indecisive the next.
The messaging that reached me as a young man, which I detested, was to be decisive above all else (at the expense of thoughtfulness and consideration) because indecisiveness would repel women even more than being a bad person. That’s not the message that I’d like young men to hear. I’d like the world to be a better place than when I was growing up.
This comment is not so much directed at you as it is to others who may come across it and have had a similar experience. Be decisive but if and only when you’ve taken her and others into account. This is how you earn the respect of your contemporaries.
So I’m old and greying now (in my late 30s)
Fuck off, i had a boss in his late 40s that had two affairs (both in their 30s & blond) in my two years there. A small 5-people company, so not a status thing. To be fair, he looked ageless, but 30s is not too old for dating.
Btw, is this good small talk?
I’m old and greying now (in my late 30s)
You can kiss my ass, whipper snapper.
None of what you’ve said rings false or against my experience.
There could be some sort of gray area between the two options of a) whiny wet napkin and b) aggressive asshole?
We should put some Bro Scientists on exploring this ASAP
Did you read the post?
So… if you don’t live your life automatically assuming that every stranger is a threat, you don’t waste time and effort with small talk.
I think the total opposite, people who value small talk assume every stranger is someone to value and attempt to connect with, whereas people who frown at or avoid small talk are often the ones assuming some pretty negative things about others
That’s pretty unfair to the 10 to 20 % neurodiverses.
You really don’t understand this hooman communication thing, do you?
So let me try to parse this; Your interactions with others is on a purely transactional basis?
My attention and time are not something others should feel entitled to receiving.
Not OP but mine are, anything wrong with it? Communication aims at information exchange, if you wanna say hey just say hey, we don’t need to waste away doing empty, false gestures at each other. You want to learn something I know? Happy to help! Vice versa? I hope you also don’t mind.
Wanna waste air with saying empty words, devoid of any actual meaning? You’d get the most appropriate version of “Yeah” and a stare urging you to get to the point.
Communication aims at information exchange,
Metadata is data. Skipping small talk is exchanging less information.
Can we not belittle each other, it’s such a conversation ender.
I do think there are people who are going to be purely transactional, myself included. I don’t know why, maybe it’s rooted in insecurity, maybe it’s lack of attention span from perpetually being online that’s rewired our simulation receptors that don’t get anything from trying to discover connections.
You’re so incredibly arrogant in your communication it’s funny you think of yourself as empathetic.
Your mask is falling.
