Your best small talk tips?

[Brindisa]

tonight is my work Christmas do (newish job). Tomorrow it’s my hobby Christmas do (this is our first time meeting as a group offline)
Friday is my local street carol concert

all lovely! But the me that agreed to all this is not the me of this week, who has a heavy period and is knackered.

I am often quite socially awkward. I talk too much about myself. I know you should ask questions but sometimes when I try that I think I come across as intrusive.

Could anyone share some failsafe small talk tips? What do you do? Or do I just accept it’s really boring and talk about the weather?

Pets (when they appear) are usually good ice-breakers, so maybe questions about pets would work.

As an introvert and former desperately shy person I think the things to remember are (a) many other people will be feeling anxious and shy too, it's not just you (b) the small talk absolutely does not have to be your 'A' material, you're not aiming for life and soul of the party, sparkling conversationist, just filling silence and interacting at a superficial level is fine. It's quite ok for small talk conversations to be boring, safe and repetitive, that's kind of the point. At my work Christmas do last week I had many, many quite dull conversations with people about whether they're going away or staying at home this year, are their kids excited, are they seeing wider family, do they open their presents first thing or after lunch, do they always have turkey or are they branching out into beef (or are they veggie, or so they not celebrate at all), what are they watching on the telly/what will they watch on Christmas day, what's the best chocolate, celebrations or roses, were any or all of these things better in 'the olds days' and so on. No-one (including me, might I add) had anything devastatingly witty or particularly novel to say about any of this, we all agreed over and over that turkey can be a bit dry yes but it's the tradition and isn't strictly lovely and so on. To that you can add general inquiries if you don't know the person well about what they do, what team do they work in, do they work with/know Bob and so on, and share this information in your turn. And then if that runs dry you can always turn to the good old staples of the weather, the state of public transport/the roads/parking and where they're going on their holidays next year. Again, so dull, so superficial but really a work stranger or acquaintance is not someone you're likely or wanting to have a deep and meaningful with, on first meeting anyway!

You could take the tack of Saga Noren from The Bridge.

“I got my period this morning.”

Ohh she's my heroine.

I agree with @maxelly . I am not really interested in your Christmas plans, nor if you have decided to have beef this year for Christmas dinner, nor if your daughter played Mary in the Christmas play. As an introvert I only go to work occasions because I have to, and in order to keep work relationships freewheeling. Does anyone really want to spend their time with work colleagues outside of work? Maybe some do but I don't. So I play the role, ask the dull questions and smile as required, then go home at a socially acceptable hour.

This is anecdote not data so feel free to disregard it. When I started in my current place of work and almost every conversation was small talk there were a couple of women I ended up gravitating to who then became friends. Over the last couple of years both have got an autism diagnosis. I think what drew me to them was that they were not ‘life and soul of the party’ types and when we got talking the conversation was rarely ‘small’. We talked about specific things in quite a meaningful way, either one on one or in small quieter groups - I’m probably not describing it very well! It wasn’t surprising when they told me about their diagnoses and I wonder if there’s an element there that led me to enjoy chatting with them.

Haha this reminds me of the difficulties interviewing candidates who have no small talk. This one (not personal experience, but reported by someone else) was of someone researching spontaneous alternation in rats - when and why, in a lab maze, they choose to turn left or right at a choice point. This guy had only looked at rightward turns, When asked if he had other interests, he said 'I'm quite interested in left turns'.

Ha! I’m thinking now that there are small talkers for everyone, the trick is to find the right match. I’m interested in your man there, I already have at least 5 follow up questions 😆 Are rats right/left handed in ways similar to us? Do right handed rats prefer to turn right? Are you right or left handed?

I would aim for something more 'medium sized' in scope. I find funny stories about local news stories, lighter current affairs, tend to sustain conversation. Could be worth reading the local paper and having a couple of these up your sleeve