Small Talk Is Not About Substance, but About Making Connections
Small talk is disliked by most people because it is exhausting, tiring and can lead to an acute attack of impostor syndrome . This can only be because we are not aware of the true function of small talk: it is not about the essence. It’s about networking.
You probably don’t have a ton of small talk with people you already know and love. Of course, you may need to chat with someone in the office or with a distant relative. However, when it comes to people you know well and want to chat with, you’ve already moved on to more meaningful conversations. The reason you can do this, according to news site Vox, is because small talk serves the function of making a connection:
Small talk … is speech that prioritizes social functions. Think about this conversation: “How are you?” “Oh, very good.” There is no zero semantic content here – presumably “pretty good” excludes “death at this very moment”, so this is some information. But the main function of these speech acts is social, not to say something, but to do something, i.e. to establish contact, to confirm a common belonging to a common tribe (whatever it may be), to express positive feelings (and, therefore, the absence of a threat), take care, etc. These are not unimportant things, in fact, they are not “small” at all, but they differ from the transmission of semantic content.
When you first talk to someone new, many questions arise that your subconscious mind wants to answer, and which cannot be resolved through frank conversation. You want to feel safe, welcome, and have a sense of belonging. In small talk, it may seem that you are not saying anything to the point, but if you do everything right , you will convey a lot of very important information. It just isn’t overtly expressed.