I despise small talk, it’s a ‘me-thing’. Actually, it’s an introvert thing. Coming from a legal education background, nothing makes me more anxious than being surrounded and engulfed by law students. Whenever I attended workshops and law seminars for the sake of learning more about the legal industry or just to put something extra in my CV, the worst part of these events for me were when the guest speeches ended and the real talking began: the networking sessions.
Should I explain why I care little for small talk? Throughout my life, I always had the impression that small talk was merely conventional, born out of habit and that people do not actually like to partake in it. That personal impression changed when I started legal education. I noticed the vast majority of the people around me were extroverted and outgoing. A lot of them do enjoy engaging in such conversations, where any response to the subject matter is unlikely to create frowns or be controversial in nature. The conversation is very polite in scope even if the manner that they talk in can be a bit raw, unfiltered or insensitive.
I never hated talking. It’s a common misconception people have on me. I actually love talking to others and I am only now learning that some people love talking to me too. I say the last sentence with some surprise because I cannot make or hold small talk and to begin talking with someone, you almost always have to start with something common, plain and simple. Asking about the weather, what you ate for lunch, what time you woke up in the morning… I used to think these topics were boring, now I think of these questions as fences to jump over, nonetheless a social behavior and a cultural necessity. It’s impossible to start a conversation without asking ‘how are you’ and the other following it with a ‘good’ or ‘alright’ even if the other had a less than stellar day.
People who I enjoy spending time with (and I pray it’s the same for them as well) are people who are willing to do the small talk for me. I feel bad whenever I have to put the responsibility on them to shoulder so much of the initiation and starting of conversations. I can never bring it up casually. It’s like admitting something you can never do better in, staring at a scar on your face that can never fully heal. I’ve never asked them explicitly to take up the burden of carrying such a tiresome weight of having me to fully depend on them to make a successful nice chat. It’s why I feel guilty whenever I talk to anyone I like. The only reason for them to carry this social task whose burden is supposed to be shared with me is pure kindness, compassion and curiosity. People who are so kind to stick with me a little longer so that I can adjust myself well, people who are compassionate enough to acknowledge the existence of introverts and people so curious that I somehow am interesting to them… These are the people who stood by longer with me, so they had a better chance of getting to see me take down the blinds I hide behind.
When the boundaries of small talk are crossed, everything escalates naturally. Conversations are heavier but they are just as pleasant. We tend to be more honest with our honesty too which brings more authenticity to the discussion. Still, I hate that there is this stage of chatting where my friends have to climb over mountains of long quiet pauses I created, uneasy laughter to shake off the awkwardness I caused or poking and probing me to open up more about the day I had. If it was someone else, people can enjoy talking about anything and everything. They just have to talk. They didn’t have to dive deep into their minds and souls in order to make conversation. That’s the least likely thing someone wants after a full day at work or uni.
Almost every conversation I had this past year was ‘deep’ in its own unique way, not because I wanted it to be but because I attracted and am attracted to deep talk. I find no sense of myself in polite chat. I find no urgency to respond or contribute remarks if I see the talk as scripted typical everyday-dialogue. I am uneasy when I am accidentally dragged in listening to gossip I do not want to hear. However, I naturally yearn for very passionate intimacy: a fond closeness with few and a comfortable acquaintance distance with many.
Some people have called such a passion as hot-blooded or clingy. There is some truth to me being clingy but it’s an unfortunate background that not many have been able step in my shoes to understand. I occasionally latch onto people too quickly because it is an impulse for me to attach to people who are willing to talk to me for more than small talk. It was a simple misinterpretation from me: people who were willing to do so were not necessarily eager to talk to me.
Back then, I knew very little people who did that for me, who were willing to sit through and initiated so much probing to get me to talk. Part of the reason why is probably because I was born into a very socially-driven lifestyle that my country, Malaysia adopts. Malaysians are carefree so we can strike up chit-chat relatively spontaneously and the momentum we talk in is quite fast-moving too in comparison to our neighboring countries. Malaysians do not pause which I find confusing because I like taking pauses. My own country’s people find it strange and tedious whenever they see me taking a breather in the middle of conversations. They do not believe in pausing because pausing meant stopping. It’s a sign of weakness.
Whenever people talk to me, they tend to unconsciously start revealing their more intricate sides to themselves. I’ve been told that I am a great listener which helped people feel comfortable to open up in casual settings. That makes so little sense to me because all I did was listen! All I did was let their words reach my ears and made its way into my brain. I definitely cannot compare to the more outspoken people who have to constantly burn so much energy to keep the mood alive and thriving in conversations. I wonder why is that the trait of being a good listener gets praised highly when in reality, in a conversation where I am supposed to talk and listen as much as I could, all I did was mostly one of the two. Do people actually not listen when they are talking?
Sometimes, I think I am undeserved of these compliments. I do not match many of the extrovert’s styles and capabilities in lightening up the room. In the end, the one social skill that I am (maybe) good at, listening, and my instant retaliation happens to be to deny any possibility that it has value. It’s very strange!
I later came to know that these were all elements that make an introvert for what they are. In real life, many people are experiencing very similar feelings of self-deprecation to different extents and they too have this unintentional desire to find identity with these friendly and expressive extroverts. However, it is wrong to say that it is the extroverted people who made us feel inferior. A lot of times that belittlement stems from glorified expectations of what a good human being should be: one who talks extremely well and is oozing with charisma and personality. It is also easy to forget that no one looks down harder on ourselves than ourselves, we aggravate much of the existing stereotype of a model person through wishful overthinking. It’s easy to be unrealistically hopeful and it’s even easier for an introvert to overthink things.
Today, I have many I can rely on and many of them are more than happy to bear the burden of doing small talk with me because they know from experience that what comes after the small talk is worth their time and effort. Knowing this, I am happy that I now can carry the responsibility to make what comes after the small talk to be worth their while. After all, conversations have always been in essence a two-way street.
Every day, I wake up and have to force myself to believe that I am loved by other human beings. I recite it like a mantra. It would be nice to live in a life where I do not have to use the words ‘force myself’ to convince myself that some people like me and will make time for me as I will do for them too. But for now, in a world where extroverts are overwhelmingly praised and worshipped, where speaking up is more courageous than the pen and pencil, where being reserved mean being unopinionated, where pausing means stopping, my everyday breakfast will always be this ‘love yourself’ mantra no matter how I much dread it on some days.
