I Hate Small Talk

I hate small talk. I hate the mediocrity of small-minded exchanges. A part of me dies with each obsolete greeting and the trivial replies they yield. Don’t ask me what’s up, because all I see is the sky. Don’t ask me how are you, and expect some condensed lie of human state that is I’m fine or the grammatically incorrect I’m good. Don’t ask me about the weather because I am no meteorologist and please cease with the weather commentary. Look it’s universally understood that sunny days are superior and everything else yields misery so your words add no new insights. Could we just stop with the safety of such mundane topics? Could we sail off the harbor into the unspoken?

Instead, I want to hear your story. I want to know how you are actually doing. I want the full account of your state, every emotion that consumes you and every explanation for its existence. I want the candid tale of your thoughts and feelings and their context. I want to know your autobiography. What is your beginning? Tell me of your childhood. Were you loved? Was it hard? Were you a survivor? Tell me of your hometown or lack thereof. Was it comforting suburbia or a bustling city? Or were you a nomad in between vast geographic definitions of home? Tell me of your family. Who do you even define as family? Tell me what they are like, the little quirks of their personalities that have amalgamated into yours. Do you loathe that, the traits you have inherited? Tell me of broken relations; who haven’t you heard from in years? Is it an old friend? What memories define the nostalgia that keeps you up at night? What was your first heartbreak? What are your regrets? What are the what-if’s you lose yourself in?

Enlighten me please with your wildest aspirations, the ones we never admit but silently tell ourselves. Share with me your hopes and dreams. Are you everything your 8-year-old self imagined you would be? What holds you back? What fears hinder you? Is it the past? Is it the future? Where do you want to go, what places do you want to accomplish on your travelling feat? Tell me all the variations of your favorites – music, shows, sports, books and more. Tell me your thoughts on the forbidden and debate every religious and political issue with me. Tell me everything there is to know about you. Spare me no detail. I want to hear every minuscule facet of your habits and every grand theory of your insecurities. I want to know your mind and all that inhabits its frontiers. I want to know your soul and all that arouses it. I am hungry for this knowledge, starving for this human connection. Isn’t this how we should relate? Isn’t this how we break the walls of strangers? Isn’t this how we begin to see the universality of each other? Isn’t this how we belong? So please, refrain from small talk. Let’s emerge in a dialogue of the complex and learn of each other and from each other. I want to know you and every encompassing definition that ensues.