You don’t understand small talk if you think it has no functional purpose. Small talk has several purposes.
One, it sends a bunch of signals. I see you. You see me. Neither of us are threats. We have a shared language.
Two, it’s how you find deeper topics to talk about. “What did you get up to this weekend?” “Oh, hung out with my friend. We saw a band I like - All Dogs - do a surprise anniversary show. You do anything big?”
Three, it lets people choose their level of engagement. “Cool, sounds fun. I stayed in, watched some TV” signals minimal interest vs “All dogs? Never heard of them but I love live music. What’s their genre?” signals interest, and now you can a little deeper on music.
If you just plunge directly into deep stuff that’s like skipping foreplay and lube. It’s probably going to make people uncomfortable.
We just agreed that isn’t half assing it, it’s a normal introduction.
Polite and informal conversation with no functional purpose.
It’s relevant because that’s all small talk bro, what you’re describing is small talk. It’s worthless and mostly annoying.
You don’t understand small talk if you think it has no functional purpose. Small talk has several purposes.
One, it sends a bunch of signals. I see you. You see me. Neither of us are threats. We have a shared language.
Two, it’s how you find deeper topics to talk about. “What did you get up to this weekend?” “Oh, hung out with my friend. We saw a band I like - All Dogs - do a surprise anniversary show. You do anything big?”
Three, it lets people choose their level of engagement. “Cool, sounds fun. I stayed in, watched some TV” signals minimal interest vs “All dogs? Never heard of them but I love live music. What’s their genre?” signals interest, and now you can a little deeper on music.
If you just plunge directly into deep stuff that’s like skipping foreplay and lube. It’s probably going to make people uncomfortable.
That’s the literal definition of small talk.
Yeah those don’t apply by text.
Those generally start after hello, hey, how are you, you know general introductions.
Again things that happen after hello.
That’s called actual conversation but again that all happens after an introduction like hello or hey.