My last three posts on this topic have covered what I learned from The Social Anxiety Institute’s online therapy course about small talk – that the only point of making small talk is to appear to be friendly, and what topics to raise when the situation requires for than a smiley “Hi”.
More on Small Talk
To recap, the only point of making small talk is to appear to be friendly – that’s it. There is absolutely no need to come across as impressive, charming, funny, or interesting.
The reason, I’m sure, that learning these truths had such a big impact on me is that one of the main negative beliefs I hold is that I am jejune.
I first learned the word jejune quite recently while reading a book on my Kindle. I held it down as you do when you see an interesting word you don’t know the meaning of in a Kindle book and thus learned its meaning.
As soon as I did I thought “That perfectly describes one of my deep-seated negative beliefs”.
If you, as I was, are unfamiliar with the word, it means naïve, simple, superficial and unsophisticated. It can also mean dull, dry and boring.
Before I went through The Social Anxiety Institute’s material on small talk, I worried about coming across in any or all of these ways whenever I made, or thought I was going to have to make, small talk.
As soon as I learned that the only point is to come across as friendly, and that the best small talk topics are actually those that are frivolous, meaningless and superficial, it completely took the pressure off.
It was like I had been given explicit permission to be exactly as I fear I am - naïve, simple, superficial, unsophisticated, dull, dry and boring – as long as I try to be friendly too, which comes quite easily.
What are your thoughts on this?
Has learning what I did about small talk made a significant impression on you?
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