Small Talk (for the geeks out here, notice that the space between the words and the capitalized T; for the non-geeks, please pardon the parenthetical tangent) and I have never been good friends. We never got comfortable with each other. There is always this awkwardness between Small Talk and I that just never seems to disperse. I guess it may be partially my fault, since I never practiced dancing with Small Talk often enough. So we never seemed to get the right rythm and are constant stepping on each others feet.

I’ve tried several times to re-acqaint Small Talk and I, but we never seem to get be able to get past the small talk. Alas, it’s a lost cause it seems. A vicious circle. We just weren’t meant to be.

Jest aside, I seriously find small talk to be quite cumbersome. I understand that it is just another tool to help people get to know each other, but for me it becomes more of a hurdle in getting to know someone since I never seem to know when to transition from small talk to something more substantive and really more meaningful. At one point I heard a quote (yeah another one, quotes seem to be a big thing with me don’t they?) Words are at best a poor means of communication. How true. Because in the intricacies of language and more so of socially acceptable language, etiquette and behavior, the real meaning, the directness and the initmacy of communication gets shrouded with a veil or words. Word which often don’t mean anything.

The worst question which hardly ever gets a candid answer in the English language is How are you?. How often has someone ever replied to that with anything more than the cliched Fine, thank you or an even worse okay? Everyone, including myself says how are you, but we don’t really even expect an answer any more. It’s more like saying hello and less like asking a question. So then my question is, how do you ask someone how they really are?

Since I’m cutting out the small talk for the night, I think I’ll end here and take Small Talk with me to join me in a silent dinner.