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Comment by seanwilson | Hacker News Reader

> I detest smalltalk. Over dinner however, talk is deep and profound and often difficult and challenging.

Smalltalk is how you get to know a little about someone so you can move on to deeper things you both want to talk about. It's really unusual to just launch into deep conversation with someone you barely know.

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Agreed. I used to think small talk was superficial, but it does serve a social purpose in mixed-company. It greases the wheel and initiates people into deeper conversation.

Without it, the atmosphere gets really intense really quickly, which can be weird unless you're among old friends or people who have high emotional intelligence to start with (can't always count on that).

A lot of people hate small talk because of their success rate of small talk. “How are you doing?”, “yeah it’s good, how have you been?” “Not too bad”. “...”

There are many good opening lines, but I've found that simply asking "How's your week been?" works much better than a "How are you" because it nudges people to to tell a story.

Then I ask questions about that story.

I'd certainly like to be better at it and I do try but those first minutes a stranger while you are searching for a common topic can be gruelling. I'd rather be introduced by friends who say "you both like X" and go from there.

Remember that everyone feels a little awkward meeting new people, and the first aim of small talk, before any other consideration, is to make the other person feel at ease. It's about them, not about you. You also have to have the courage to demonstrate genuine interest in others. If you only care about the ways that person relates to your particular interests, you will come off as disingenuous.

>before any other consideration, make the other person feel at ease

What excellent advice! My go-to line has been "what's been keeping you busy lately" which is a polite form of asking what someone "does" without making them them I only care what job they have.

That is how you should always interpret the "how are you?" question. Don't just say "I'm fine" - talk about what you did today, what you're going to do tonight, or tomorrow, or in the weekend. That's usually a good jumping off point to talk about some other topics.

Also: https://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/03/18/88-dinner-partie...

Except when "how are you?" just means "hi".

I really like this twist, I'm going to start using it myself. Thanks!

It's really unusual to just launch into deep conversation with someone you barely know.

It's not that unusual for me. This might be part of why people seem to have strong reactions to me, whether positive or negative. I am pretty terrible at small talk.

Me either. In my experience, being willing to be the first one to open up goes a long way in making people open up to you and establish some trust that, for example, I won't be judging people etc. But I do try to never, ever, discuss politics or religion. That's a one-way route to bad tempers.

I generally don't discuss politics. I am careful how I discuss religion. I also find that being side by side or sitting at a 90 degree angle instead of face to face reduces the sense of confrontation. It also helps if you are doing other things while talking.

I usually am only trying to make conversation. I am slow to judge and I tend to assume people do things for a reason. So I don't dump a bunch of shame and guilt on people.

I also default to talking about me rather than about other people. It gets me accused of being self centered and crap like that, but I find it to be the least worst option, vastly less problematic than talking about other people.

For someone who dislikes smalltalk, the ideal is for their conversational partner to maintain the discussion until a topic that interests them is brought up. Between two people, this is perhaps insolvent, but with a larger group, some of whom may already know each other, it is perfectly feasible to wait until you have something to say to speak.

If you're one of the hosts, it's also perfectly acceptable to say just a few words at the start and then proceed to occupy yourself with the logistics of the dinner.

Even the legendary romance between T'sais and Etarr began with Etarr saying thus: "Tell me of yourself." Small talk is hugely important.

Who? I tried googling the names separately and together and didn't come up with anything that appeared to be bios or whatever about people with those names.

I'm guessing it's from Dying Earth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_Earth

I think what GP is saying is that he/she finds smalltalk less awkward at the dinner table compared to other settings, or maybe that less smalltalk is needed before going deeper when there's dinner involved. Which is understandable because food serves as a great icebreaker as well as a natural topic of conversation.

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