Print This
Email ThisIt robs you of your life at parties. Makes you contemplate suicide on airplanes. Doubles your time at the gym, and usually slaps you around like a little bitch at the mall.
This unholy bastard child of interesting conversation and violent murderer of free time is none other than UNNECESSARY SMALL TALK.
It’s likely happened to us all. You’re rushing through the mall trying to pick up a few quick items and head home for sanctuary. You’re one pack of Mach3s away from being finished your “To Do” list and you mistakenly smile and make eye contact with someone you haven’t seen in 5 years, and had honestly forgotten about them until that very moment. You’d like to turn and make a dead sprint for the exit doors but now Johnny Acquaintance is only footsteps away from being in your personal space.
After direct eye contact there are 3 options you may exercise:
Option #1 Cold Hearted - Pretend you never saw them. Be the asshole and just walk by.
Option #2 Duck and Cover - Take a hard left/right into whatever store you happen to be in front of and hope it’s gender appropriate. (as it’s next to impossible to be a believable male shopper in Additional Elle)
And Option #3, which plagues my existence, usually plays out like this,
“Hey Mike, long time no see, how’s it going?”
“It’s going good. Just off to my last store and then straight home.” (my make-shift plea for freedom)
“Ya I hear that. I’ll probably be here for at least another couple hours. SOOOOO, what have you been up to?”
Fantasy moment: I throw this person from the top level of the mall onto the make-up kiosk on the lower level.
Back to reality: I secretly ask myself; How in the hell does Larry King here expect me to BRIEFLY sum up my last 5 years of living while standing in front of the Disney Store??
Scrambling for a quick reply I usually muster out a “Just workin’ in Toronto. Trying to the live the dream” THEN, out of the deepest, dumbest, most thoughtless part of my brain comes; “How about you?” This desperate cycle of empty questions and answers always goes on for far longer than it should, until the person who’s the most bored gives the old, “Well, I’ll let you go, but it was really great seeing you. We should grab a drink sometime.” Both parties agree, and walk away, fully aware of the fact that they’ve exchanged no contact info, making meeting for a drink virtually impossible.
Now don’t misunderstand me, there are plenty of people from days gone by that I am very happy to see and don’t mind spending the 20+ minutes catching up with. However, for some reason I rarely see those people (very possibly because they’ve seen me first and ducked into an HMV). For me its always Tommy Too Cool from university that once drank 14 beers in a 3 hour period and has since dedicated his life to breaking that record.
Here and now I propose we make a change. A step in the direction of more efficient daily encounters. We’ll call it OPTION #4 - The Gentleman’s Maneuver.
Back to the mall scenario; when running into a long forgotten acquaintance that you have no desire to start the jog down the million word mile with, make sure you speak first:
“Hey John, good to see you. I’m glad you’re still alive.”
Because that’s the bare bones truth. You’re glad this person is still living and nothing terrible has happened to them, but aside from that, you’d rather spend the next 20 minutes at Dairy Queen gorging yourself on a KitKat Blizzard.
Upon hearing the “Glad you’re alive” remark, your acquaintance is made aware of the situation and is obliged to say, “Thanks, you too. Have a great day” This should be followed by a high 5 –just because I’m trying to bring it back– and both parties walk away.
The key to this being successful is that no one should be left feeling rejected or insulted. The reality is that time is precious, and we never know what’s going on in someone else’s life. So if they wish to just go on their merry way, be content they care you’re alive and didn’t choose to exercise options #1 or 2.
So from today on, let’s do away with these senseless one act plays and fake handshakes, and get ourselves home to our loved ones faster.
Or at least walk with me to buy my Blizzard.
Together we CAN make a difference. If anyone out there knows any executives from NBC that would be willing to run this idea for a “THE MORE YOU KNOW…” commercial, please let me know. I’d also like Chuck Norris or Mr.T to be the celebrity endorser.
All comments and suggestions are welcomed and encouraged.
For more timely, relevant, and engaging articles, subscribe to Brazen Careerist.
While these situations don’t happen to me that often and don’t bother me that much, your take on it is hilarious.
Might want to change the title to something that better reflects the content. I thought it was going to be some silly tirade on eliminating water cooler chat.
Again, well done. Best writing I’ve seen on this BC website.
High Five!
Love it.
Great post. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Great analysis & I have done all 3.
It seem to me that the further away from your college years, the more it occurs.
We usually do the ‘how are you doing’ thing for 3-5 minutes.
(It’s nice to know if they got married or not)
Then I would say something like:
I got to go … why don’t I get you contact & we could arrange something in the future.
The contact comes in handy because I have gotten times where I would call the person up a year later when other friends came to visit for drinks.
The problem with small talk is that it assumes that you actually have some interest in the other person. You are pretending to be interested in the other person’s life, when actually you could not care any less.
Look, I KNOW I’m weird. Chances are, you and I are going to have NOTHING in common. Unless you are an atheist, who likes turning your house into a halloween attraction for Halloween, and thinks that the next evolution of mankind will be when we download our brains into computers… well we’re going to have nothing to talk about.
I know thats weird. I know that I’m different than you. Why do I have to spend time chatting with you about the latest episode of American Idol, or what Obama or McCain said this week, or anything else that doesn’t interest me?
Just give me that tight-lipped smile and nod, and walk on past.
Option 5: Pretend you just received a phone call, one important enough that you can’t just hang up, and one that sounds like it will last for a while, so that waiting for you to finish is just not an option.
Alternative to Option 3: “SOOOOO, what have you been up to?”
“Quite a bit actually. Maybe we can grab a drink sometime and really catch-up properly?” I’d love to right now, but I really do have to get home.”
both additions to the list are very smooth.
I`m putting those in the mental rolodex for sure