I think one thing I really didnât get when I was like 20 is that âsmall talkâ is often a way for people to hint at the bigger deeper things that are going on with them without overloading someone. like it can be an invitation and a chance to test the waters before launching into things that it may or may not be the appropriate time/place/person to talk about those things with.
like when someone asks âhow are you,â you donât have to respond with âgood,â but it also isnât necessarily a good context to go straight to âI keep flipping my shit at people I love because I canât regulate my emotions and Iâm afraid of them dying or abandoning me,â plus if someone isnât used to broaching that kind of topic at the beginning of an interaction it gives them a chance to develop the kind of comfortability to be able to talk about that stuff. some people will reach that point sooner than others, whether itâs over 10 minutes or multiple years.
also, Iâve realized that itâs a shame to dismiss talking about things besides our deepest troubles as being meaningless. human connection is meaningful even if it is just about the weather or how our family or our favorite sports team is doing, and knowing how someone feels about these supposedly surface topics tells us a lot about eachother that can be applied to topics you may consider more personal or impactful, and forming that foundation with someone is absolutely not something to be pushed aside as trivial.
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