In Defense of Small Talk

All of a sudden, I was reading Curious George with five strangers on a Friday night at a bar while waiting in the line for the bathroom.

Let me explain.

Earlier this year, I went to a Santa Monica bar called Winston House with a good friend of mine. It’s one of those typical California places with an unassuming exterior and snazzy art deco interiors that was supposedly one of the it spots of the area.*

*I live in Seattle, so the idea of an “it spot” has become a foreign concept for me.

Inside, it was cramped (naturally). Soft leather and velvet sofas acted as fences between inebriated men and disappointed women. It was so loud that the whole room was collectively playing charades.

Eventually you felt like a master mime. The only way to exchange sounds that were actually words was to scream into someone’s ear like TV commercials nowadays. Conversations were drowned out by Bad Bunny’s yawny voice.

In my search for a slightly more manageable noise level, I made my way to the bathroom.

As I stood in line, I noticed a whole row of books next to me.

Without thinking, I turned to the woman behind me and asked her: “Do you think anyone reads these?” She stood pensive for a few seconds and began examining the book wall. Then, she pulled out a Curious George book from the shelf.

We opened it and took a seat like it was story time. We began reading the book to each other and making voices for the characters (I guess you could say I’m a voice actor now).

Eventually, her three friends came looking for her. They were a bit confused at first. Then, they joined our little rendition Reading Rainbow.

Here we were, five adults reading Curious George at a bar in Santa Monica. Just because I made an observation out loud.

I’ve been thinking about that magical moment of randomness over the last few months. How do you recreate that magic? How do we create those delightful moments of connection that unmistakably make us happier?

Stranger Danger / Stranger Engagement

We’ve gotten colder.

Go to any coffee shop, and you’ll see the person behind the register, and the customer puts their order as if they were talking to a voice assistant.

Our eyes are glued to OLED screens instead of another person’s pupils.

God forbid we pick up a call from a number we recognize ~shudders~

My generation grew up with subpar social skills. What used to be a fundamental muscle for navigating the world, now seems to be a rarity. Just like our leg and back muscles have considerably weakened from sitting all day.

It could be a combination of technology, changing social norms, etc. I became less interested in the why (since that’s been broadly covered), and more interested on how to get better at talking to strangers.

This led me to The Power of Strangers by Joe Keohane.

The book makes a compelling case for engaging with strangers. It makes us happier, more emphatic, and opens our life up for more interesting knowledge and situations than staying in our own bubble. Does it also put us at risk? Yes, of course. Yet, we’ve greatly overestimated the benefits of “stranger danger” and never considered the upside of stranger engagement.

Curiously enough, we are under the notion that people don’t enjoy engaging with strangers, so we avoid these interactions because we do not want to be disliked and/or rejected. This concept is called pluralistic ignorance. But research shows that we end up enjoying these conversations and form a positive impression of the person we engage with.

Keohane also identifies that another obstacle that prevents us from engaging with strangers is the lesser minds problem. Since we are not mind readers, our tendency is to assume other people aren’t as sophisticated, smart, and determined us. Our expectations of each other tend to be so low, we do not see the upside of engaging with a stranger.

Small Talk is a Bridge

The way to overcome these mindsets is by leading with curiosity. This way we avoid assuming the worst of people, nor getting stuck in our heads trying to decipher how they’ll perceive us.

But mindsets alone won’t get you talking with strangers. Even if you do get the benefits of engaging with strangers, you may be stuck in the how.

This is where you have to give small talk a chance.

I get it. I prefer deep conversations. Conversations where personalities are exchanged, memories unlocked, lives connected by laughter or grief. The conversations that we’ll remember years from now by how they made as feel, as much (if not more) for what was said.

But small talks are the bridge towards these conversations. It’s a verbal handshake. It establishes contact, but doesn’t go to full on bear hug.

So don’t be afraid to talk about the weather, or observe something out loud, or to ask someone where they got their purse/laptop bag from.

The success in starting conversations with strangers—as I’ve experienced since being more intentional about it—will ultimately come down to two things: Maintaining curiosity as the primary mindset, and being comfortable with conversations going nowhere or even people being dismissive.

Talk to your barista more. Ask what their favorite drink is.

If you are at a museum and you see someone looking at the same piece of art as you, ask them how it makes them feel.

If you see someone reading a book that makes you curious, politely ask them what it is about.

If someone asks you about your day, genuinely tell them. The need to reciprocate will move the conversation beyond the “I’m good,” default answer.

It’s time for us to build bridges—to remember how close we are to moments of magic everyday, if we dare to only ask. And we can dare to ask with the most mundane questions/statements. Trust me—it won’t kill you.

Time to build bridges.