Small Talk
Nov. 10th, 2004 12:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonI've never been good at small talk, mostly because I find it so unnecessary. I'm comfortable inside my own head and don't feel the need to fill the void with noise. I do realize it serves some socializing function: people have this antsy feeling that it's rude to be silent, so they fill the empty air with chat; people reach out trying to make new friends, so they start with the basics, etc., and I think you can feel when those are the kinds of things people are doing. I don't mind that and I'll play the game, commenting on the weather or how many floors on the elevator have been punched.
But there's this other component to small talk that I find harder to take: people who just like to hear themselves talk; people who are desperately uncomfortable inside their own heads and want to distract themselves from too much thought; people who want to establish dominance or control or ascertain the pecking order. All of these things can be covered with small talk, too, and I think it's just as obvious when someone is engaging in this kind of chat. I usually remain silent in such presences—acknowledge that I've been addressed with a vague smile and a raised eyebrow. I just don't want to contribute to the noise quotient. Which, I suppose, makes me something of a hardass. It's a fair cop.
No real point to this post except that it was a morning dominated by small talk on the way in—of both varieties.
I did see one interesting vignette on the drive to work this morning. I pulled up to a stoplight behind a beat up flat panel truck. The guy in the cab was grizzled, with a thick, drooping mustache, and I remember thinking he reminded me of a character from Tim Powers's novel, Last Call—Archimedes Mavronos, the neighbor and friend who was dying of cancer. And I was driving through Venice at the time, which I have associated with Powers ever since I read Dinner At Deviant's Palace, not one of my favorite Powers books, but memorable since I'm a native Venetian. (Or is that Venusian? Often the lines become blurred in Venice, California.)
Anyway, the guy in the truck...The back of the cab was plastered with Oakland Raiders decals, the license plate holder had Oakland on the top frame and JRAIDERS as the license, and the back end of the truck had three bumpers stickers, reading left to right: "Oakland Raiders," "Bush/Cheney '04," and "Boycott France." Hey, I just had to laugh. Then as we were toodling down the street together, a car zipped around me and pulled in behind the truck. That car had a Kerry/Edwards sticker on the back and soon decided to zip around the truck, as well, and speed off down the road. I thought it was emblematic of something, but like all metaphors, best left to the reader to decide the meaning.
Enough small talk.
But there's this other component to small talk that I find harder to take: people who just like to hear themselves talk; people who are desperately uncomfortable inside their own heads and want to distract themselves from too much thought; people who want to establish dominance or control or ascertain the pecking order. All of these things can be covered with small talk, too, and I think it's just as obvious when someone is engaging in this kind of chat. I usually remain silent in such presences—acknowledge that I've been addressed with a vague smile and a raised eyebrow. I just don't want to contribute to the noise quotient. Which, I suppose, makes me something of a hardass. It's a fair cop.
No real point to this post except that it was a morning dominated by small talk on the way in—of both varieties.
I did see one interesting vignette on the drive to work this morning. I pulled up to a stoplight behind a beat up flat panel truck. The guy in the cab was grizzled, with a thick, drooping mustache, and I remember thinking he reminded me of a character from Tim Powers's novel, Last Call—Archimedes Mavronos, the neighbor and friend who was dying of cancer. And I was driving through Venice at the time, which I have associated with Powers ever since I read Dinner At Deviant's Palace, not one of my favorite Powers books, but memorable since I'm a native Venetian. (Or is that Venusian? Often the lines become blurred in Venice, California.)
Anyway, the guy in the truck...The back of the cab was plastered with Oakland Raiders decals, the license plate holder had Oakland on the top frame and JRAIDERS as the license, and the back end of the truck had three bumpers stickers, reading left to right: "Oakland Raiders," "Bush/Cheney '04," and "Boycott France." Hey, I just had to laugh. Then as we were toodling down the street together, a car zipped around me and pulled in behind the truck. That car had a Kerry/Edwards sticker on the back and soon decided to zip around the truck, as well, and speed off down the road. I thought it was emblematic of something, but like all metaphors, best left to the reader to decide the meaning.
Enough small talk.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-11 06:29 pm (UTC)Yoy. That is creepy.
So you're a Canadian imported to Nevada? That must have been quite a culture shock.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-13 08:10 am (UTC)