55 points

Comfortable silence. Learn to appreciate it.

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13 points

“We still never talk sometimes” - Swanson

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1 point

Someone quoting him on the internet like this would go against his whole philosophy

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1 point

Good.

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4 points

remembers Pulp Fiction scene least that’s what comfortable silence makes me think of, and yes I agree, it’s nice when a couple people can sit down and not feel like they have to say anything.

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3 points

30 years ago today - some cinemas are marking the anniversary with a showing.

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2 points

Holy crap I had no idea it was an actual anniversary! I just think in pop culture bits (memes). Neat. I so remember the first time watching it in the early teens, Tarantino can sure write fun random dialogue also sure was fun seeing Travolta be awesome again at the time after the baby movies. Not that I didn’t enjoy Look Who’s Talking,at the time, but who remembers those after Pulp Fiction for Travolta?

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26 points

What if I told you: People who hate small talk only have meaningful relationships. It’s the shallow relationships they lack.

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2 points

This. This exactly. I’m friends with few people, but I’m very good friends with them.

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22 points

Small talk by definition is useless drivel. I don’t build relationships on that…

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275 points

Sometimes you don’t need to fill the silence with sounds. I’d rather be in a relationship with someone that we can sit down and be quiet together

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84 points

Or you can use literal sounds instead of words. My spouse and I have this thing going on where we make this kind of squeak/baloon sound with our mouth which has the same effect as “hi, nice to see you”.

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43 points

Oh thank god my partner and I aren’t the only ones. Don’t get me wrong, we know and like that we’re weird, but it’s nice to have company.

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5 points

A few steps away from becoming furries.

/satire

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34 points

Hahahaha I love hearing about other people’s microcultures

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9 points

Me and my gf usually say Ahoozles (shortened from Anyhoozles) and just a way of saying “I want to talk to you, I just don’t know what I want to talk about

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1 point

We just say “you know…” and then the other person will either say “yep/same” or “no I don’t know” depending on the mood. And if the cat makes noise we’ll also just say “I know buddy me too”

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2 points

My wife and I do things in threes: three taps, three nudges, three blinks, three noises, whatever. It means “I love you”. It’s a nice way to say it when you’re too tired to say it. I think it originated when we’d say it as we were falling asleep.

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21 points

Or fuck.

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5 points

For most couples that takes up like 15 minutes once every 3-5 days or possibly much longer.

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3 points

Longer than 15 minutes?

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-8 points
Deleted by creator
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28 points

They did say “sometimes”, but it seems like you took that to mean “all the times”?

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6 points

Everything is a balance and people are different anyways. I don’t know many people who like any of the extremes. But it’s a different amount for everyone. And the “partner” thing is strange anyways. As long as you’re madly in love, you probably enjoy hearing about every pea in their canteen meal. That might fade after 20 years of marriage. Or a stressful day at work. Or with kids. Or it doesn’t. Both is fine. As long as it’s consenting partners. 😆

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186 points

Its only “small talk” if you dont actually care about what the other person says. If you are genuinely interested, then its just a conversation. Thats how i see it at least.

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62 points

Yeah, this. Talking small is faking interest. I’m not good at that. But when I actually care about the other person, “what have you been up to” is meaningful. Cause I actually wanna know.

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14 points

Yeah but small talk can get the ball rolling on a real conversation. It’s just a way of initiating a conversation and it’s giving an opportunity for someone to talk about things they might be interested in.

“It’s nice day out today!” doesn’t literally mean that. It means “there’s an opportunity for us to do something outside if you’d like, but if not, perhaps you’d care to discuss something that’s important to you instead? Of course you you aren’t interested in having conversation or doing an activity, I’m perfectly fine with that too” but in a significantly more concise way. Sure you don’t really care about their opinion on the weather or whatever small talk, but it’s a completely open-ended expression of a willingness to have a conversation about something that matters to the other person. It’s opportunity to have a real conversation without any pressure to have a real conversation.

Also it’s not that hard to do.

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17 points

Yeah but small talk can get the ball rolling on a real conversation.

It can also be used defensively to avoid having the ball get rolling on a real conversation. This is a key defensive use of small talk which can be deployed at occasions such as “Family Gatherings”, “Workplace Water Coolers”, “Sports Events”.

If you know your relative is a conspiracy theorist and will inevitably try to use a gap in the conversation to talk about how the Jews are using their Space Laser to Direct Hurricanes at Lithium Deposits to Remove the Lawful Inhabitants from their Rightful Land… deploy small talk to avoid this.

P.S. Avoid “the weather” as that’s an opening to talk about how the recent hurricane was controlled by Blackrock.

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2 points

To be fair, had it been possible to control hurricanes, I have no doubt that Blackrock would try to use it to extract profit but they’re hardly alone in that.

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5 points

“it’s not that hard to do” is absolutely giving never had a mental illness vibes

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4 points

I mean that’s basically why a lot of us are great at small talk: we actually do care about the contents of that low stakes conversation with strangers.

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5 points

Completely this.

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4 points

Yup, the only two things small talk and conversation have in common is that they take a minimum of two people and involve spoken words.

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1 point

If people small-talk in sign language, would it be called small-talk?

Your remark about “spoken words” made be think about this and I find it curious, since “small-talk” has become something of a fixed expression.

While words related to vocal conversations do appear in other phrases like “being left speechless” for example, I imagine “small-talk” to be more of a thing on its own in today’s usage.

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1 point

That’s a good point - do we “speak” sign language? I’d never given it much thought. I think it was lazy writing on my behalf; the phrase “spoken words” could probably be tweaked to make it more obviously inclusive of all the signers out there.

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