How much small talk is too much?

[Token Weeaboo]

Okay but how would you change it? My approach is to always get the person to talk about themselves and things that they are interested in, but this only works if a person is willing to go off rather than providing just a sentence or two in response.

My mother told me "if there is one thing people can do real well is talk about themselves" so I, being very introverted, try to get people to talk about themselves. The short responses are very annoying. If that's all they have to say then they must not be very interesting or judged you before the conversation even started. A basic waste of time.

It's me personally but I find people facinating with their different interests and their knowledge of different things. The issue I have is finding a way to weed that out. I generally have to speak about random things, or make an observation pertaining to them until it happens. After that kinda fill in blanks you're curious about.

Of course even this fails if they just aren't interested in what you have to say.

 

[DidYouJustSayThat]

two topics people are always willing to talk about: their pets or what they're having for lunch

Should any of them be Asian, you could combine these two topics.

 

[Recoil]

Just be beautiful and tall, OP. Then you don't need to say anything and you'll still float to the top.

 

[TFT-A9]

I only engage in small talk if it's something that's expected or otherwise useful as "social lubricant". Otherwise I think it's a waste of time and breath. I mean, if there's a subject to discuss or jokes to crack, that's great, but other than that I don't really like taking up time with chitchat.

 

[Surf and TERF]

Why do you hang out with these people?
Unless you're working on a project together or something, you're just wasting each other's time anyway so small talk is kind of necessary.

I work in a social job and the most common criticism on feedback forms is that my demeanor is not friendly or enthusiastic enough. I’ve had a couple years to adapt and the complaint is less frequent, but my extraversion is still below average. My performance is largely judged on my ability to entertain. I’m not going to move up if I don’t change something.

However, the thing that sparked the question is because my girlfriend’s family is hassling me about it. They are very talkative and surround themselves with people who are very much the same, so my quietness stands out more. They see it as rude.

They know I’m not used to it and that I’m genuinely trying to do better, but I can sense that this issue is a recurring topic behind closed doors. It is an excuse for them to talk about me in a patronizing way and I resent that.