Happy Talk

I'm rubbish at small talk.  Really, really, really rubbish.

Quite recently I went for a meal to celebrate a friend's birthday.  She had invited a group of people from her work to come along, and I didn't know any of them.  I found myself sitting with some of them at the meal, and the conversation went along the lines of the following:

1. How best to look after a hamster/protect it from very young children
2. How unseasonably cold the weather has been, considering we live in the warmest part of Britain
3. 'EastEnders'
4. How everybody likes to take their tea or coffee and why (this topic went on for a good ten minutes)
5. 'Gavin and Stacey'

I hardly said a word during this meal, because I either didn't know much or wasn't interested in talking about any of those things.  You might be thinking "why didn't you make an effort to talk about something you wanted to talk about" or even "why didn't you make an effort in general" - both of which would be reasonable things to wonder.  But the thing is...I just can't be bothered.  I really can't.  That doesn't mean I'm not nice, or generally polite when I'm meeting new people.  It's just that sometimes I meet people with whom I have nothing in common, and generally I know this from the off (something I'm sure they also know about me), and once I'm sure of it I think it's easier all round if I just shut up and nod politely along with whatever's being discussed.  I do consider this a huge personality failing of mine, but it's still part of my personality nonetheless.

I really envy those people who can talk to anyone about the most mundane subjects, and talk as though they're entirely confident that people will find their conversation interesting.  Because I suspect that part of my problem is in my wondering why anybody would really want to listen to anything I have to say.  I have a lovely friend who is always happy and chatty.  Last week she told me in great detail about a dental appointment she'd just had, and as she talked it occurred to me that if anybody asked me about something like that, I would never go into detail about it because it wouldn't occur to me that anybody would find that sort of thing interesting.  However much I wish I were different, I suppose I'm just not the sort of person who's happy talking about life's minutiae, unless there's a funny or random sort of spin that can be put on it.  I am absolutely certain that a lot of people think I'm a bit cold or standoffishly arrogant because of my reluctance to do the "small talk" thing.  And they might well be right about that.

But by far the worst aspect to this is little personality (let's call it a "quirk") of mine is business networking, which I hate with a passion.  Mainly because the whole connotations of "networking" to me are synonymous with visions of slimy people in pinstripe, standing in a hotel foyer handing out business cards and making pointless and insincere small-talk about whatever it is they do for a living.

Unfortunately, the fact that I run my own business does mean I get invited to these events from time to time, and from time to time I swallow my aversions and genuinely give it a try.  But I always come away feeling that my aversions have been reinforced one hundredfold.  Don't get me wrong; my reluctance to engage in what I would term "pointless chit-chat" probably screams from my every pore and might go some way to being the reason why these things never work out for me.  If only I actually cared, I might have gained some useful contacts by now.  But that's the thing!  Just going anywhere with the intention of picking up some 'useful contacts', or that I could be seen as nothing but a 'useful contact' myself makes my skin shudder a little bit.  At the last meeting I went to, an over-aftershaved man oozed over to me to invite me out to a business lunch at which "we can see how our businesses could best help one another".  That made my skin shudder as well, especially as he then described himself as a "total networking tart" as though that was supposed to be a good thing.  (Luckily, the lunch never happened).

I'm not sure if anything I've written above has made me sound like a horrible, elitist sort of person who can't be bothered making an effort with new people.  It probably does, but that wouldn't be true, not really (honest, guv!)  I suppose that for me it's about sincerity.  I am an "all or nothing" sort of person and I like to be genuine in the way I speak and act.  Unfortunately, that does mean I don't often feel like chatting to virtual strangers about the weather.  So sue me.