Nothing is worse than trying to catch up with an acquaintance at a crowded bar. No matter how uncomfortably close you may be standing to your conversation partner to avoid being elbowed in the rib by someone trying to buy a drink, you must still shout whatever pleasantries you are trying to communicate if you want any chance of being heard. But strangely enough, I’ve found recently that volume control and extreme proximity to another person’s face aren’t my biggest challenges when it comes to bar chitchat — it’s knowing what to say.
I accidentally asked a casual friend what he did this summer and whether or not he enjoyed it twice within the span of a five-minute conversation, not because I has already forgotten his answer, but because I was scrambling for appropriate topics. While talking to a girl with whom I had an admittedly tenuous connection, we were actually left talking about the recent persistent rain, and how excited we both were for fall to arrive. I was a little horrified — for someone who considers herself an adept conversationalist, why was I suddenly reduced to talking about the weather?
In the final year of our college careers, my closest friends and I have just about abandoned any semblance of formality in our relationships. We barge into each other’s unlocked apartments without knocking. No one bothers with Venmo anymore — we simply assume any purchases we make for each other will simply even out overtime. Conversations are rarely prefaced with any kind of standard greeting, any can cover anything and everything from jobs we’ve been rejected from, romantic triumphs and trials, health issues and family drama — often times in the same breath.
My recent floundering attempts at small talk are no doubt related to how spoiled I have been by the intimacy of these close relationships. The people I interact with most frequently are the same people who know me inside and out — people who wouldn’t bat an eyelash if a summary of the ethics paper you’re writing suddenly morphs into a discussion about how she feels about her divorced parents starting to date again. When so little is off-limits in certain relationships, I find that the line between appropriate conversation and over-sharing is beginning to blur. Rather than risk revealing my life story to an acquaintance, I find that my self-censor tends to kick into overdrive.
Everyone can remember at least one cringe-worthy moment when they’ve regrettably over-shared — I once found myself spilling my guts to the guy behind the counter at Cohn’s while he rang up the pint of Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked I was purchasing at two in the morning. But surely there is a happy medium between sharing my personal problems with an unwilling stranger wearing a kilt, and “How bout them Yankees?”
While a first or second meeting is hardly the time to bust out life or death questions, a friendship will plateau if you don’t move past pleasantries. You can’t be as open with everyone as you are with your closest friends — nor should you be — but there is a special kind of magic in the first conversation you have with a person that dives just a little deeper than normal. After all, you don’t get any closer with people by asking about what they did on their last vacation. I’m ready to make the parameters of small talk a whole lot wider.
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