Introverts: are you "afraid" of small talk, or do you just hate it?

Myrealana

I aim to misbehave
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 29, 2012
Messages
5,425
Reaction score
1,911
Location
Denver, CO
Website
www.badfoodie.com
I think I'm pretty good at it. People I talk to seem to take an interest in what I say, and afterwards, have positive memories of our conversation.

What I suck at is understanding the social queues to *start* the conversation. What group of people can I walk up to and join in, and which insular clique I should avoid. If I'm at a function alone, I spend a lot of time wandering around the room hoping someone will wave or say something so I don't have to be the one to start. (That was a lot easier when I was younger and thinner.)

And it's SO MUCH WORK being witty and engaging with someone 1-1. After 20 minutes of a cocktail reception, my eyes get heavy. After an hour, it's all I can do not to go take a nap. Whatever energy I started with is just GONE.

So no, I'm not "scared" of conversation. I simply don't see much value in it, and I dread the way it's going to drain me.
 
Last edited:

mirandashell

Banned
Joined
Feb 7, 2010
Messages
16,197
Reaction score
1,889
Location
England
When someone like me (the smiling, chatty Extrovert), approaches you and strikes up a conversation (small talk), do you really wanna punch me in the face and say "Get lost, leave me alone - I'm not interested in talking with you!"

Or, do you just suffer in silence while looking for the nearest exit sign?


I ask because my tendency is to zero-in on the person in the corner who appears to be shy and alone and try to make him or her feel welcome and at ease.

It never occurred to me that the wallflower really doesn't want to be bothered.
:Shrug:

I think it's not a bad idea to approach the wallflower as it's difficult to tell whether someone is shy and really wanting to talk to someone or is just waiting for people to stop looking at them so they can quietly bugger off.
The important bit is how you interpret the signals they give you when you do make contact.
 

Myrealana

I aim to misbehave
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 29, 2012
Messages
5,425
Reaction score
1,911
Location
Denver, CO
Website
www.badfoodie.com
When someone like me (the smiling, chatty Extrovert), approaches you and strikes up a conversation (small talk), do you really wanna punch me in the face and say "Get lost, leave me alone - I'm not interested in talking with you!"

Me? I LOVE it when the chatty extrovert seeks me out and monopolizes the conversation.

I like to listen to people talk. I learn so much in those times. I just don't know how to find the right person to talk to in a crowd.
 

laazy

Epic procrastinator
Registered
Joined
Nov 15, 2014
Messages
48
Reaction score
3
Location
Sweden
I like discussing topics I'm interested about. Small talk usually is about something random for the sake of talking, and I just don't see the point. It doesn't annoy me, as long as I can just sit lazily and just listen with half an ear while I keep the interesting discussions going with myself in my head.


When someone like me (the smiling, chatty Extrovert), approaches you and strikes up a conversation (small talk), do you really wanna punch me in the face and say "Get lost, leave me alone - I'm not interested in talking with you!"

Or, do you just suffer in silence while looking for the nearest exit sign?


I ask because my tendency is to zero-in on the person in the corner who appears to be shy and alone and try to make him or her feel welcome and at ease.

It never occurred to me that the wallflower really doesn't want to be bothered.
:Shrug:

Depends. If it's early on in whatever it is, like a party, I'd probably not know who to approach, or how, in which case you'd be very welcome to. If it's late I'd probably be tired and slightly annoyed at the people and noise, wanting to just slip away or suffer quietly until I can do so. :D
 

L. Y.

Thread surfer and virtual bartender
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 10, 2012
Messages
7,629
Reaction score
2,466
Location
The 808
When someone like me (the smiling, chatty Extrovert), approaches you and strikes up a conversation (small talk), do you really wanna punch me in the face and say "Get lost, leave me alone - I'm not interested in talking with you!"
For me, not at all, mostly because I assume this:
I ask because my tendency is to zero-in on the person in the corner who appears to be shy and alone and try to make him or her feel welcome and at ease.

The kindness is always appreciated. :)
 

BardSkye

Barbershoppin' Harmony Whore
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 2, 2006
Messages
2,522
Reaction score
1,009
Age
68
Location
Calgary, Canada
When someone like me (the smiling, chatty Extrovert), approaches you and strikes up a conversation (small talk), do you really wanna punch me in the face and say "Get lost, leave me alone - I'm not interested in talking with you!"

Or, do you just suffer in silence while looking for the nearest exit sign?


I ask because my tendency is to zero-in on the person in the corner who appears to be shy and alone and try to make him or her feel welcome and at ease.

It never occurred to me that the wallflower really doesn't want to be bothered.
:Shrug:

I think a lot of it depends on context. If you're approaching me at the bus stop, the odds are good that I really don't want conversation. At some sort of social event, I would appreciate the kindness you are showing me unless and until you tried to drag me out of my corner, ignoring my saying, "No, thank you."

I'm the laconic type. I'll answer a direct question put to me but anything else will be like pulling teeth. I don't offer information to strangers and am wary of being asked even innocuous things. ("Hey, how much do you make?" "None of your business.") I'm perfectly content to stand in my corner and watch and listen until I've decided who interests me.
 

BardSkye

Barbershoppin' Harmony Whore
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 2, 2006
Messages
2,522
Reaction score
1,009
Age
68
Location
Calgary, Canada
You know, this thread topic might be very useful "small talk" to find out whether you're approaching an introvert or someone who's just shy and wishing they could join the conversation.
 

auzerais

I like puppies.
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 7, 2014
Messages
402
Reaction score
87
Location
Seattle, WA
I just have to be difficult, so I'm a painfully shy introvert, but the most extroverted introvert you'll ever meet. I throw parties. I love parties. I love people. I love talking to people. I just need lengthy extended periods of party-free, no people time. The self-checkout lane was invented just for me, so I don't have to talk about my purchases. The ipod was invented for me, so I could stuff my earbuds in my ear and be reasonably oblivious to people yammering at me at the bus stop.

Honestly, while awkward conversation of any ilk makes my skin crawl, I don't mind small talk and I actually even quite like it. I like having a script, things to talk about when you don't really know a person. Plus I've learned a lot of awesome things via small talk. I've met people with interesting jobs, and people with boring jobs who have funny things happen to them nonetheless. Sure, I've been bored senseless listening to someone whine about the weather, but I've also had some intolerable discussions about the existential crisis of the human condition.
 

Gilroy Cullen

Handsome servant of a redhead
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 26, 2011
Messages
4,567
Reaction score
677
Location
Deep in the State of Confusion
Website
swordsvspens.blogspot.com
When someone like me (the smiling, chatty Extrovert), approaches you and strikes up a conversation (small talk), do you just suffer in silence while looking for the nearest exit sign?

I'd say my answer is definitely that it's situational.

If the crowd is huge and I'm finding a good shadow to be painfully non-obvious, then chances are good you'll get little from me. However, I was taught to never be rude, so I'll probably get you talking then just listen/stare into space while I pretend to listen. (I've discovered that expressive eyes are good focal points, but makes people seriously unnerved. :D)

If the crowd is small, then if my energy hasn't been sapped by the local DRAMA! queen, I'll be happy to chat. When energy is waning, I get ... snippy. (Not pretty. Even my best friend knows to step careful at that point.)

Here's the interesting thing: I love to sing, even subject people to my karaoke. (Take that however you wish.) An evening with good friends and singing doesn't drain me near as much as a company gathering (especially the required ones where everyone is grumbling) that lasts for the same time. But I usually take a bit to return to self as it were.

Alone time is good. Friends are few and far between. But Quality over Quantity definitely.
 

kuwisdelu

Revolutionize the World
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 18, 2007
Messages
38,197
Reaction score
4,544
Location
The End of the World
When someone like me (the smiling, chatty Extrovert), approaches you and strikes up a conversation (small talk), do you really wanna punch me in the face and say "Get lost, leave me alone - I'm not interested in talking with you!"

Or, do you just suffer in silence while looking for the nearest exit sign?

Depends what you're talking about.

Though generally I find suffering through a conversation can be at least mildly better than standing around awkwardly while eating and drinking myself into a stupor.

Just please, for the love of all that is sacred, please do not talk to me about work at a party. Or make me talk about my work.

I cannot fathom why people do this.

I hate being asked what I'm studying. I hate being asked how my work is going. I hate hearing about how other people's work is going.

Talk to me about something else, anything else, and I probably won't hate you. ;)

(Writing's okay. I mean "day job" work. Unless writing is your day job. And then I will only hate you because I'm jealous.)
 
Last edited:

E.F.B.

Stories, stories everywhere
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 26, 2014
Messages
6,351
Reaction score
1,829
Location
Valinor
Website
www.etsy.com
I'm a major introvert, but I'm not "afraid" of small talk. I'm just not one to automatically engage in it, and depending on the situation, I don't even see the point in it. Small talk tends to happen between strangers and honestly, my first thought when I'm sitting/standing there and a total stranger starts chatting me up, my first thought is, "Who are you and why are you talking to me?"

I know that sounds like I'm being a grouch or that I don't like people, but that's not the case at all. I do like people. I just like knowing who they are before I talk to them. Makes it easier for me to judge where the conversation is going to go and be able to think about what I say before I have to say it. Plus, I tend to stick to the sidelines in most social situations, I tend to be around people who are older than me far more often then I'm around people my own age, and I tend to think that I'm not that interesting, so when a stranger decides to talk to me out of all the people in the room, I really am wondering why they would want to talk to me.

I'm also WAY less comfortable small-talking men my age or older than me than I am small-talking to women. I think with men my own age, my lack-of-comfort has more to do with hormones:tongue, but with older men it has more to do with outright shyness and my cautious nature, especially if I'm alone.

Introverts need human contact, too. But they demand quality, not quantity. Parties with lots of small talk exhaust them. What they want is in-depth conversations about something they're passionate about. However, they will always need a certain amount of alone time, even from people they love the most.
Yeah, that^ too.


When someone like me (the smiling, chatty Extrovert), approaches you and strikes up a conversation (small talk), do you really wanna punch me in the face and say "Get lost, leave me alone - I'm not interested in talking with you!"

Or, do you just suffer in silence while looking for the nearest exit sign?


I ask because my tendency is to zero-in on the person in the corner who appears to be shy and alone and try to make him or her feel welcome and at ease.
Lavern, if it was you, I'd be more than happy to small talk because I likes you.:Hug2::)

Seriously though, the reason for someone deciding to try to talk to me makes a big difference in how I feel about it. I've gotten so that I can tell with a 99% accuracy, at least with women, whether or not someone has decided to talk to me because they genuinely want to be kind and make me feel welcome (most likely at an event where socializing is supposed to happen) or if they're talking just to fill the silence (most likely in an elevator or waiting room). I will always appreciate kindness and reciprocate, even if it takes me a little bit to get comfortable enough to open up and do more than smile and nod. And if all else fails, talk to me about animals and/or a tv show/book/movie that we both like. I know how to talk about those things.:D

I smile and nod with the people who just want to fill the silence too, but in that case, I'm more likely to be thinking that I want them to just leave me alone...and I mean that in the nicest way possible, of course.
My mother, the extreme extravert, felt that way when I was a kid. She was always forcing me to do things that would "cure" me of my introversion (team sports, extra-curricular speech classes, etc. :gaah).
Oh gosh, speech classes. I had to take one of those as a required college course a couple years ago. HATED IT!!!
 
Last edited:

onesecondglance

pretending to be awake
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 2, 2012
Messages
5,359
Reaction score
1,661
Location
Berkshire, UK
Website
soundcloud.com
HAHAHAHA no.

I rock at small talk. I can be the life of the party. I can discuss the damn weather and make you laugh so hard you'll spit wine through your nose.

It exhausts me. It can be entertaining, after a fashion...but then I need to go home and wrap myself in familiar surroundings and be left alone for a while.

This is me. I just got back from work where I had to be "on" all day, and I'm just drained. It's not that I can't do social, or that I fear it, it just takes a lot out of me.


I don't hate small-talk, I just hate people.

People suck.

There is a lot to be said for this philosophy.
 

Introversion

Pie aren't squared, pie are round!
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 17, 2013
Messages
10,642
Reaction score
14,865
Location
Massachusetts
I ask because my tendency is to zero-in on the person in the corner who appears to be shy and alone and try to make him or her feel welcome and at ease.

It never occurred to me that the wallflower really doesn't want to be bothered.

Since most of us don't wear big tattoos or neon signs announcing our social type to the world (checking; nope, don't have either), you can be forgiven doing this. After all, perhaps said wallflower is really a sad lonely extrovert, weeping into their beer over the lack of wall-to-wall skin-tight friends, rather than a reasonably happy introvert who prefers to quietly people-watch from the margins.

(In fact, the former is probably a good bet. My own, totally wild-ass and slack-jawed guess is that extroverts outnumber introverts around 3 to 1.)

That said, PLEASE do not something like:

  1. notices potentially sad and lonely person
  2. "Hello, I am here to help!" and other cheerful noises
  3. notices person responds with grunts and lack of eye-contact, and concludes OH NOES! SAD PERSON IS SAD AND/OR PATHETIC AND NEEDS CHEERING UP!
  4. turns the Dial Of Cheer up a notch, and until Sad Person Cheers up, goto #2
I've been on the receiving end of this loop. Since I have never been a hunked-up buff bloke what attracts swarms of teh horny wimmuns (or teh horny gay dudes either), I know for Certain Fact that I wasn't the target of love. Rather, it was the above script.

And it's incredibly irritating not to be able to kick the well-meaning extrovert out of that loop, without resorting to overt rudeness.

So, advice: If the wallflower doesn't seem interested in responding, DO NOT GO TO STEP #4! All will be forgiven. :D
 
Last edited:

KellyAssauer

The Anti-Magdalene
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 3, 2006
Messages
44,975
Reaction score
14,604
Location
inbetween
I do like people.

Clearly, you're part of the problem.

Bunnehs however, totally different story.
I won't talk to bunnehs.
I know better.

Lavern: the longer you ramble on,
the greater the chance I'll make you a fictional character,
'cause I'm taking mental notes. I'll prolly write down
almost everything you said the first chance I get.
 
Last edited:

Ambrosia

Grand Duchess
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 4, 2009
Messages
26,893
Reaction score
7,269
Location
In the Castle, of course.
When someone like me (the smiling, chatty Extrovert), approaches you and strikes up a conversation (small talk), do you really wanna punch me in the face and say "Get lost, leave me alone - I'm not interested in talking with you!"

Or, do you just suffer in silence while looking for the nearest exit sign?


I ask because my tendency is to zero-in on the person in the corner who appears to be shy and alone and try to make him or her feel welcome and at ease.

It never occurred to me that the wallflower really doesn't want to be bothered.
:Shrug:
Punching you goes against my ethics, plus it would hurt my hand, so no. I'm not going to punch you. Depending on my mood, however, you may find yourself dragged out of small talk and into deep talk about your life and any problems in it before you know what has happened to you.

Cause, that's fun. :D
 

Sage

Currently titleless
Staff member
Moderator
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 15, 2005
Messages
64,560
Reaction score
22,360
Age
43
Location
Cheering you all on!
When someone like me (the smiling, chatty Extrovert), approaches you and strikes up a conversation (small talk), do you really wanna punch me in the face and say "Get lost, leave me alone - I'm not interested in talking with you!"

Or, do you just suffer in silence while looking for the nearest exit sign?


I ask because my tendency is to zero-in on the person in the corner who appears to be shy and alone and try to make him or her feel welcome and at ease.

It never occurred to me that the wallflower really doesn't want to be bothered.
:Shrug:
For me it depends on what the topic is. If it's something that I can talk on length about, then be prepared to hear about it whether you want to or not. If it's not, then be prepared for me to look all awkward while I try to decide how to continue conversing or if it's okay for me to walk away without hurting your feelings. (But I'll never want to punch you in the face, lol)
 

onesecondglance

pretending to be awake
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 2, 2012
Messages
5,359
Reaction score
1,661
Location
Berkshire, UK
Website
soundcloud.com
I'd like to think it's pretty obvious when I'm not in the mood for talking. I'll probably avoid being at the party, to be honest. Or, if there's some reason I can't, I'll force myself to engage and pay for it later.

If I were in a less social context - say having a quiet coffee - I'd put up a barrier like wearing headphones etc. to signal "leave me alone".
 

jaus tail

Banned
Joined
Aug 10, 2013
Messages
7,091
Reaction score
430
I think it's about being with people with more or less similar level of intelligence. I get along very well with some people and get all awkward and 'what do I say now...' with many.

I'm sure this happens with everyone. Even extroverts would get bored with kids or people with less intelligence. I like to believe I'm more intelligent than most people(doesn't mean I'm better or superior), just challenge my brain more and like to have detailed conversation than engage in gossip or exchange political news or sports information. Though i have done that many times.

Anyone would get bored with someone who is at a different intelligence level around them. I get bored with people who are more intelligent than me. I think they're acting like snobs.

this is off topic but,
I've learnt than in friendship character is more important than personality or intelligence
and friendship isn't about talking every day, it's about being there when needed.
 

onesecondglance

pretending to be awake
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 2, 2012
Messages
5,359
Reaction score
1,661
Location
Berkshire, UK
Website
soundcloud.com
Disagree, jaus.

I get drained talking to clever people as much as I do less clever people. It's the interaction itself that's draining, not who it's with.
 

WriterDude

Writer?
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 11, 2012
Messages
4,177
Reaction score
230
Location
The North West
I think I am probaby defined as a wittering introvert. I hate small talk and find it uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as standing by the rubber plant looking conspicuously lonely. I'm usually the quietest shy person at any party, but there have been times where I've been the extravert, and that really is awkward. If no one else is talking, I witter, cringing, hoping someone will take over before I insult an obscure minority or betray a embarrsssing secret.

By all means extroverts, please small talk away. :)
 

jaus tail

Banned
Joined
Aug 10, 2013
Messages
7,091
Reaction score
430
i had one friend n we'd spend office tea breaks sitting on the stairs at the balcony n just look at the garden. we wouldnt talk, just silently sit. no awkwardness, no conversation. but at times we'd talk about each other's problems.

still, the silence with him was far more comforting than the conversations i've had with others. both in our our worlds.

i think the amount of interaction is different for everyone. some folks talk all the time, some talk less, some talk far less. i am mostly quiet but i have also enjoyed the attention one gets for cracking jokes n cheering the class.
 
Last edited:

theotter

Registered
Joined
Jan 7, 2015
Messages
43
Reaction score
5
I'm (debatably) an extrovert and I hate small talk haha.
There's such thing as being "confidently quiet", like, you don't need to talk all the time, and you don't need to feel nervous about not talking when you aren't.
So if you feel like talking, talk! If not, go to dream land