I am so bad at small talk. I think today did it for me. It really brought it up to my face and yelled at me. Someone tried to talk to me and I just wasn't in the mood and I had answers for the questions but didn't continue the conversation. I didn't even try. Sometimes the whole fake thing gets on my nerves. I don't talk to you any other time why would I talk to you now? Now because we are in the same space. I am pretty happy with silence. Sometimes it is welcomed.
I guess I am bad at it because I don't see the point in it. I talk with a purpose, whether that purpose be to tell you something, ask you something, be nosy, or simply need something. If I am spoken to and I don't see any point in the conversation continuing I will politely answer the question or comment on whatever the subject is about, then I will just move on. I don't think this is rude. Other do. Others take offense to this. Others see this as being brushed off or maybe me being mean to them. No you may not be in the circle that I want to talk to about life or anything deep but we can certainly talk about the weather, kids, or maybe work a little. Although work is difficult because I have a difficult job.
Small talk to me is just a filler for uncomfortable silence. Silence is uncomfortable as it may for the other person, isn't for me. I usually have a 100000000 random things on my mind, our home schedule, or thinking about an application that needs to be taken care of at work. Yep, while we are sitting next to each other and I am staring off into the distance, you are not bothering me, I might actually on a Saturday or Sunday be thinking about a military dude that is pushing my buttons with the paperwork he sent to me. Or maybe the thousand directions I am pushed during the day with our busy schedules, but I am not thinking 'man this person is horrible or why is this person sitting next to me trying to talk'.
It's just small talk, and I am bad at it. If you want it to continue, please talk, engage, ask questions, I will follow through but I am horrible at follow up questions, I am horrible at making the conversation continue if I am just not in the mood. People overload is a big thing to me. If I have had a day or a few days that I am surrounded by people, I will slowly shutdown, waiting for my quiet time. I will begin thinking of bedtime and how quiet it will be without anyone around me. But today, today I was not in the mood. Until that is a conversation kept my attention and the people I was engaged with talked about subjects I was interested in and I was interested in doing the follow up and continuance of the conversation.
We are human, we are creatures of habit. I know who my people are and who my people aren't. And especially, if I feel I cannot trust you with what I say, I won't say much. And maybe today I felt like I couldn't trust this person with what I say. Maybe I felt like everything I say is taken the wrong way and I end up offending this person because we are not cut from the same cloth. Some of us enjoy life with others that don't always agree and some of us cannot hang with those with other sights of life. So maybe to keep myself from engaging to say something that might be taken wrong, I just kept my mouth shut.
But small talk, I have never been good at small talk and sometimes am taken as rude. Please don't take those of us that just don't want to be fake as rude. Take us as honest people, as people that won't fake our way through life. Because sometimes you just don't feel like being around people. Sometimes the fake conversations of the weather and work are a lot of work. When a relationship is exhausting, then it probably isn't the relationship for you.