Conversationally incompetent

Nothing fills my heart with more dread or makes me feel more like a bona fide gibbering dolt. Honestly, I’ve given it a lot of thought and it really is my number one social anxiety. It climbs head and shoulders above such trivial concerns as having spinach in the teeth, garlic breath, broken knicker elastic or unzipped flies – all at the same time. Even calling one’s closest friends or nearest and dearest by the wrong names fades into insignificance in comparison. What is this gargantuan bogey, this Leviathan of gaffes, this mighty smiter of the ego?

Small talk.

Behind this little name lurks a big problem. Because, you see, it strikes me that small talk and its constituent parts - inconsequential waffle, gossip, anecdote, shaggy dog story, ad lib, et al – is actually precisely the fuel that fires the machine that turns the cogs that spins the wheel of life. Social life, anyway. And we are social creatures, so what other kind of life counts for much, really?

Maddeningly, those who are blessed with the gift of small talk are entirely oblivious to the fact, are simply not aware of the precious gem that has been bestowed upon them. Just watch them in action; they can talk to anyone, of any age, about anything or nothing for hours on end. Do their palms sweat? No. Do they frantically grasp around in their heads trying to remember something they think they read in a newspaper over someone’s shoulder on the bus? Never. Are they ever struck dumb, blushing and fumbling for words before blurting out something entirely inappropriate? Not this side of the tomb.

My sister has this gift in shovelfuls. My good friends Liz and David have it. My ex does too, come to think of it. And many other people that I know have it as well, even if to a slightly lesser degree than these masters of the trait. Of course, they are completely unaware of it and naturally so; you only appreciate this particular talent when you don’t have it yourself.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not entirely socially inept or a cave dwelling hermit (for the most part). But this skill is one I recognise in others precisely because of its complete absence in myself. Which doesn’t mean to say that I spend all my days in silence of course; give me a theme or a topic or a question-and-answer format (or a group of people that I know) and I can converse quite competently. No, what fills my heart with dread is, for example, that few moments before a meeting starts, say, and I find only me and one other present. Or arriving early to a party and willing away that first half hour before the rooms fills up or people I know arrive (or the wine kicks in – whichever comes first).

Strangely, I have no problem whatsoever in making small talk in writing. Perhaps I should round up a group of similarly small-talk-less socially-challenged folk and form some sort of pressure group to insist that one day a week is reserved only for communication using a written format. Heck, it needn’t be high tech – drawings would count, handwriting would be fine, or flashcards, and big felt tip pens on flip chart paper.

The venture would, of course, be ultimately doomed to failure. After all, it would involve a group of we social inepts actually becoming, well, a group. Which means conversation. Which means small talk. Which means, well, it would never happen.

Or maybe I could just write a little note to one of my small-talk-gifted friends and ask them to do it for me. That’d do the trick.