AL SLICE OF LIFE
After years of avoiding small talk Devinder Bains wonders if she’s missing out…
Small talk is big effort for our columnist Devinder Bains.
Things have not gone to plan. Today was one of those days where I’d organised my day down to the last minute, and I’m currently 63 minutes behind schedule. 12noon: Get on the quiet off-peak train for my two-hour journey, find a seat with a spacious table, plug in my laptop, enjoy my homemade smoked salmon sandwiches while writing this very column. The train is delayed by 47 minutes and I’m now sat squashed on a table with two men who also have laptops open, and a woman who is eating tuna straight out of the can while speaking loudly on the phone, not to mention that she’s popped her huge rucksack down on my feet, but it’s ok because she apologised… but not moved the bag. But I’m British, the empty apology is still an apology, so it still counts.
Once she get’s off the phone, she starts telling the whole table about the nightmare she’s having with her cleaner. She’s already wasted eight minutes of her own life explaining these details on that call, now she’s taking even longer to explain the situation to the three of us, even though we’ve alI lived through this once already. Just as she finishes her story: the cleaner might be stealing from her (that took me less than a minute to tell) the bloke sat next to me asks her how long she’s had the cleaner – I’m too angry to look at him. Do we really need any more information? I wouldn’t let any of my actual friends tell me a story this lengthy about their cleaner let alone a complete stranger.
And that’s when I realise that this column is now going to be about strangers who insist on talking to you when you’re clearly busy. I mean, I’ve got my laptop open, my notebook open and to be honest, my mouth open (I’m onto dessert now), I DO NOT look like someone who has any spare minutes to take in the small details of someone’s issue with their cleaner, especially not someone I’ve never met before. And this woman is far from the only culprit. I’m taking about Tom, the student who sat next to me on my plane journey from Dubai to London, the one who was so certain I would want to hear about his vegan journey from age five to 22 that he started talking to me while I was reading a book about the The Rolling Stones... yep, he thought his diet was more interesting than the Stones. And don’t get me started on the people that try and start a conversation with you in the the gym. It’s a place for sweating not chatting, and don’t tell me you didn’t see that I had headphones on… they’re bright blue!
Am I alone in shying away from these chatterboxes? I ask google to back me up but instead I find myself reading an article about ‘why talking to strangers is good for you’. Research shows that interacting with “weak ties” (people that we don’t know very well) can actually boost your mood. Studies where introverted participants were told to act extraverted by being more outgoing and talkative to strangers resulted in participants feeling happy.
Ok, ok, maybe it’s time I looked at small chat in a different way, I might make someone’s day with my inane rants about my gardener. And just maybe, someone’s idle chat might help me out in some way. That’s when I realise I’ve written this column quicker than any others, now that’s made me feel happy. I’ve got six minutes to spare before I reach my destination. Maybe I’ll put my laptop away and spend the time I’ve saved to chat to the woman who gave me the inspiration for my column.