Diaries Magazine

Small Talk

Posted on the 05 March 2014 by C. Suresh
"It is raining today"
When you are soaking wet and dripping water on the office carpet at the rate of liters per minute, this information certainly comes as no surprising revelation to you. I, under such circumstances, start wondering whether the other guy seriously thought that he was widening the scope of my knowledge. It so happens that such is not the case. This is one of the examples of what people call Small Talk.
Small talk is one of those various things that I have never managed to fathom. (Oh! You already know that I would not know it since I know absolutely nothing anyway? No need to sneer - at least I KNOW when I do not know something AND admit it instead of sounding off like one - or all - of the Three Wise Men. Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it). What is the purpose of telling someone something that he already knows? That's a question which has, till now, remained unanswered to me and, therefore, I never really have managed to shine as a conversationalist. To imbue words like, "It is so hot today" with a wealth of meaning and interest seems utterly beyond me, particularly when I see the other guy pouring sweat and showing no enthusiasm for any reminder of how hot the day was.
It is not merely that I do not use Small talk. I do not understand it when it is being used either. While on a visit to another city and meeting someone new and, if the other person says something like, "Drop in some time", I end up giving a blow-by-blow account of all the things I need to do during that visit and why it would be impossible for me to 'drop in'. Of course, on my way back home, I keep kicking myself every five minutes for not just saying, "Sure" instead of feeding the guy a detailed itinerary. There must have been some failure when they coded my brain and, so, what comes out as an instinctive response for all is a data retrieval project for me - and, invariably, the retrieval is too late for it to do me any good. I take anything that is said literally and, by the time my brain says, "Eureka! This is one of those meaningless things that comprise small talk", the damage is done.
With all these handicaps, you would presume that I would be the original strong silent man. Not really! I can wax eloquent on how difficult I found the task of getting out of bed in the morning - something that, surely, the other guy could not have known, at least not as certainly as the weather outside the window. Strange, though, that some really new information seems to hold lesser interest for people than what they already know.
It really must be true - what people say. People like the reassurance of being told what they already know. It makes them feel happy that they have not lost their marbles - yet!
As a consequence, it is I who am assumed to have lost almost all of  MY marbles - if I had them in the first place. Life IS unfair!

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