Small Talk

Once upon a time, I was in the toilet, when I overheard my colleagues’ conversation.

Colleague 1: You know, sometimes, I think my stomach is bloated and sometimes it’s flat!
Colleague 2: Ah I know. Must be because you ate very full that’s why bloated.

…

My thought process: Why your face so red? Ah I know. Must be because I slapped you!

It is a misconception that I am good at small talk. No. I am far from it. I consider the above example as typical small talk—and it is in no way easy to maintain. I can imagine what the conversation would look like if I were talking to colleague 1.

Colleague 1: You know, sometimes, I think my stomach is bloated and sometimes it’s flat!
Colleague 2: ? Why?
Colleague 1: I don’t know leh. Don’t know is it because I eat too full.
Colleague 2: Oh okay. *thinking* …Duh?
Colleague 1: … *silent* *do business* *exit toilet*

Another common kind of small talk that I fail terribly at looks like this:

Person: The weather sucks.
Me: Why? Raining?
Person: Yah.
Me: (I like rains though…even if I’m stranded outside…)
Person: Cannot even hang clothes out!
Me: It’s nice to sleep in during a rainy day though.
Person: True.
Me: …
Person: …
Me: …
Person: Have you eaten?
Me: Yeah. (Why are you asking me two hours after lunchtime?)
Person: What did you eat?
Me: ?! Erh, Nasi Bryani. You?
Person: U-Mian lor.
Me: Ok.
Person: …
Me: …

…How do people go on and on about bloated stomachs while I die at this type of conversations!?

I only appear good at small talks when the other person discloses a lot of personal info and stories after I post questions! The “who, what, when, why, how” are very good questions that can probe an entire thesis worth of stories out man. Hahaha.

Well, I kinda get the point that people engage in small talk; because the whole point of it is to have a conversation to erh, connect.

But I’m raised in an environment where conversation takes place in order to exchange information and get a point across, not so much to ‘connect’. Plus, my mother is very introverted, so her kind of conversation usually focuses on exploring one topic, rather than jumping topics and touching the surface of all of them.

I was also, somehow, raised with the idea that conversations are either like stories or based on a question-and-answer format, so small talk, which rarely raises or answers questions, has very little appeal to me.

So, coming back to the very original point of why I even wrote this out is that I’m both freaked out and intrigued by how people engage in pointless small talk. I’m still wondering if they have a certain technique they use to talk such obviously superficial conversation but still look comfortable with it. I’m not kidding when I say I feel a lot of stress thinking what to say for small talks but I’m very at ease writing this entire post.

It’s…it’s just weird how people walk into the toilet talking about bloated stomachs and walk out like they’ve just discovered that the sun rises from the east. Or was it the west? Oh fag. I forgot. Hahaha.