Doing school runs through a September heatwave doesn’t half flex the old ‘small talk’ muscle.
Finding new ways to discuss how boiling it is, how many washings you’ve hung out, how you’d just packed the summer clothes away, etc, at the school gates twice a day is quite the challenge – but one that I am up for.
I’m not here to complain about small talk. I enjoy it. Not because I find the subjects themselves especially riveting. Discussing Scottish weather, holidays, household chores, hobbies, pets, and children in a generalised way can be pleasant enough but it’s hardly the greatest hits of conversation.
It’s the whole encounter that fascinates me. Not so much what’s said, but what’s unsaid, the context, the dynamics of the scene, and – most of all – what’s revealed about the person I’m talking to.
If you were talking to me, for instance, at the school gates, my whole demeanour would betray me as an overgrown tomboy trying to look and sound like a responsible adult – and failing.
You’d clock my bedhead flung into a bobble and the hair of the child I’m here to drop off and instantly deduce that, not only has hairstyling for girls never been my forte, I’m actually scared of it.
I’d say something jaunty about barbecues or hanging out washing and you’d think, “she’s out of her depth”.
The mathematics of small talk
Paradoxically, most small talk is done with a big voice at a comfortable distance, whereas big talk usually involves small voices and shorter distances.
There’s a rough equation you can apply to gauge the size of voice and talk appropriate to any given conversation. It’s something like, space multiplied by time, divided by context minus whether/how you know the people.
So, if you’re in a lift with strangers, you can have small talk in a small voice for a short time, but must never launch into your life story, or anything to do with politics, religion, or sex. In fact, “Morning” will usually do.
However, if you’re on your third glass of prosecco and fourth hour at a regular hairdresser’s, you’ll probably have finished your life story, covered your beliefs, sex life and secrets and be onto your birthmarks and other ways to identity your body.
On the one hand small talk is a gateway drug to the harder stuff: gossip. Don’t be ashamed of gossip – humanity and language evolved through it, and it’s often delicious, so enjoy it.
On the other hand, small talk is a key to the common ground where big talk can begin – where people truly connect, get burdensome experiences off their chest, share deeper thoughts and feelings, discover attraction.
It’s where souls and minds can meet, and we can show each other our birthmarks. We all need that.
That said, small talk is not for everyone. Some people don’t engage in it at all. Ironically, these are the people I would love to ask, during a September heatwave, “Are all these barbecues ruining your washing too?”
If they replied, “Who cares, we’ll all be dead soon”, or “I’m in love my neighbour”, or “Do you need help with your Peter Pan syndrome?”, it would add some spice to the whole exchange.
Maybe one of those curveballs will come my way at the school gates this week. Here’s hoping…
