What's your default small-talk line?

[franch]

I'm rubbish at small-talk. The people I know who are best at it all seem to have a standard line that works in every situation. DH's is a variation on 'So what have you been doing today?', which seems to serve him well. What's yours?

LOL!

Sadly the only parties I go too are where the air is filled with the sound of screaming children, the stench of burnt BBQ food and people are busily swatting wasps

Anyone else?

"My word! Did you see how far I just swatted that wasp?"

MAB - brilliant

I don't have one. I just bite the inside of my mouth and look gormless

LOL @ Jumpingbeans - I'm intrigued, do you have a sandwich board saying 'I'm doing a sponsored silence hung round your neck'??!!

Weather/kids (if at school gates)

How's work going?
What's in the papers (MPs expenses a good one thes edays - everyone's got an opinion)
What was on TV last night
Footie (if talking to blokes

MAB - v good.

Mine are:

Weather

You look nice, that's a lovely skirt/top etc (but I only do this if I sincerely like the item e.g. I would not say "ooh I love your Crocs, what an interesting shade of turquoise they are")

Gosh can you believe how much of the term has passed already? (for school only)

How do you know (host of the party)?

How was your weekend/half term etc etc

What have you got planned this half-term/weekend/Christmas etc

I was a long-suffering corporate wife for a looong time. I could do small talk as my specialist subject on Mastermind.

ooh I think that academic one can be adapted (btw PandL I am going to have to make academic small talk later today - you may have saved my life)

I really admire people who can do small-talk. I kind-of can, but not in that way that makes people sort of ..sparkle.

DP is dour northerner, but actually fantastically good at asking the right questions and listening to the answers. He's also one of those people who knows something about most things, just because he's generally interested in the world, and people light up bcs he appears to be a fellow-traveller. whereas I am slightly obsessive about the things I do know about, but spectacularly ill-informed about everything else.

I do think that having a line is a good one. I'm going to get one now.

I do hate those 'tell me 3 exciting things that no-one knows about you' wankers though.

Someone else's opening gambit was to ask me at what age I lost my virginity, and I said 10 (as a joke and a brush-off) and then people whispered about me all night .

"

Everything I think of to say, I remember an AIBU saying 'don't you think she was rude to ask that?'

I know now that it is impossible to speak to pregnant woman in particular without upsetting them in some way, unless you completely avoid the fact that they are clearly growing a baby.

The trick is I think is to avoid anything contentious such as religion, politics or money (unless you are a MNetter in which case add bf v ff, grapes, fruitshoots, private education and car parking spaces to the list!). Oh and don't try and be funny unless you are sure of your humour, and your recipient's.

Oh and if you make a faux pas apologise, change the subject or make your excuses and walk on!

LOL onebat!

My DH is the same, he knows something about everything, so where I say "oh, that sounds interesting", he says "oh, yes, I was reading about that the other day and..."

Trillian - what you say to pregnant women is "you look really well" or (if they clearly don't!), "how is the pregnancy going?" (those are the two acceptable things to say to me atm anyway - 33 weeks and huge, and it is possibly a thread I started to which you are refering! )

Some great lines here. I expect they will all desert me at the crucial moment.

Does 'you look well' mean 'huge'?

In my case, yes, probably

"You look well" has been complained about on interent fora (not sure if it was MN) as meaning "you look fat"!

I am crap at small talk because I find it so boring! I can ask nice questions, but then I kind of switch off and then suddenly realise I haven't heard what the other person's been saying for the last few minutes

Any tips as to how to find small talk interesting enough not to look really rude?

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See, you really can't talk to pregnant people

I'm dreadful at smalltalk. I'm now considering opening conversations with 'so, what's your default small-talk line?'. Can't fail. I'll either get loads of good ideas, OR it'll be a good small-talk topic in itself, OR it'll confirm people's lingering suspicion that I'm a bit odd, they will avoid me and I'll never have to make small-talk again.

bloss, I really like your "This may sound silly" line. I think one of my problems is that I freeze a bit when I encounter people who do things I know nothing about - especially really dull, abstract jobs that even they don't seem to find interesting. (A musician - easy. A city banker/IT person - hard.) But I am going to work on your approach!

Alternatively, I'm tempted by DCMB's idea

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I'm terrifed I'll start channelling Kristen Scott-Thomas in 4 Weddings in those situations.

"See her?

Glaswegian.

Works in Boots.

Slut."

It's true bloss - blindingly simple really. They usually open with 'Oh, it's incredibly boring', but what I need to realise is that that is not the same thing as 'I do not wish to bore you with it'

I must say that I find myself endlessly quoting from MN, whilst trying frantically to disguise the fact that 'I got this from a random stranger on t'internet'.

Oh a friend emailed me to say blah..[how to grow courgettes thread]

Someone [expat/voltaire/trixy] told me blah...

Do you know, I think the law [according to AIBU] is that blah

that sort of thing.