Radio Atlantic Presents: How to Talk to People

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Becca,

Anna,

I'm inside a booth.

A very small booth, it seems.

Yeah.

Why?

Because I'm at this conference where the whole point of this conference is to mingle and meet strangers.

I even have a number, which is my buddy badge.

And I'm supposed to find a person here who has the same number and chit-chat with them.

Oh no, forced friendship at a conference sounds terrible.

Well, it actually could be fun, but I'm a little bit out of practice.

You've forgotten how to make small talk, it seems, let alone make a friend.

Exactly.

Hey, everyone, this is Radio Atlantic.

I'm Hannah Rosen, and this is real.

I am in a booth.

There is a conference outside me.

There are lots of people who I should be talking to.

And also, I'm sure I'm not the only one because it's September, which means no more hanging out at the beach with your nearest and dearest.

We are back to school and back to work and back to conferences, which means back to small talk.

So today we're running an episode of How to Talk to People, an Atlantic series with hosts Becca Rashid and Julie Beck.

Okay, Becca, I thought I was really good at this, but actually I need some help.

That can't be true, Hanna, given that you talk to people for a living and know how to ask questions better than anyone I know.

So what exactly makes this so nerve-wracking for you?

That is an excellent question because like if you're at a happy hour, you know the point is to chit-chat.

If you're at a work event or a work meeting, you know the point is to get a work thing done.

But this is like something in between.

So I'm just not really sure.

Like, am I asking about people's kids?

Am I asking about their job?

Am I asking about their outfit?

Like, it's just confusing.

And it's hard to do it without making it sound forced or feel forced because you probably don't have enough time to make a best friend, but you need to be able to carry the conversation long enough in case you're stuck with the same person at every event today and they sort of become your best friend for the day.

Yeah.

But do you you want to see them after?

Maybe you haven't made that decision yet.

So exactly.

That's the other, it's not just how do you enter the conversation.

It's how long do you continue the conversation and when do you end the conversation?

Also, I have this image of myself of Hannah with just like way too big a smile on her face.

Like,

Hannah, hi.

Hannah on the playground at recess.

It's a little much,

you know?

I just don't know how to calibrate quite right.

So.

Today we're running the first episode of season four of How to Talk to People, an Atlantic show with hosts Becca Rashid and Julie Beck.

Here it is.

Okay, we're gonna do it.

So we'll sit here.

Okay.

We'll sit here.

We'll start like usual and talk about what you want to do with your hand.

Right, yeah, like I do need to.

Yeah.

Does this moment feel awkward to you?

It doesn't, so I don't know if it should.

Great news.

Great news.

If I'm in a five-minute conversation, I am like, what am I going to say next?

Like, what's the next thing that I should...

Did I already talk about the weather?

And then I get real panicked.

No, I feel like I can chat with anybody for like five minutes, right?

And then if I run out of things to say in the middle, that's my fear.

Because we are trapped here for the duration of this haircut.

I can't just do it like, well, it was so great to see you.

Gotta run while you're holding my hair.

Yeah.

We could stop talking and I will try to put out like a comfortable chill vibe.

It's, you know, pretty common someone might say something like, oh, there's a really good vibe here.

And to me, that is totally bewildering how they discern that vibe within a few seconds.

Hi, I'm Julie Beck, a senior editor at The Atlantic.

And I'm Rebecca Rashid, producer of the How-To series.

This is how to talk to people.

Here at The Atlantic, I oversee the family section, and I've also been reporting on friendship for many years now.

So I think a lot about relationships and community, and I do see often that people struggle to form the close relationships that they really want.

And I think one of the barriers to that is the dreaded small talk.

So I think in this first episode, we have to figure out how does one even make small talk?

How indeed?

And what holds us back from the chit chat, from the conversations that help us build relationships?

And what explains that tendency so many of us have to look down at our phones and avoid conversation?

or

hide in the corner at a party and only talk to the people we know.

So,

where better to do some research on this than to talk to the ultimate small talk experts at the hair salon?

Good, hi, hi, hi, hi, good to see you.

I feel like, okay, the main thing that I need to ask you is when I'm sitting in this chair, do you even want to talk to me?

Oh, yeah.

I, you can be honest, it wouldn't hurt my feelings.

I want to talk to...

I have to be here all day.

Right.

So I do need some entertainment.

Okay.

Like, I, so I like talking to people.

I like

getting the hot goss.

Okay.

Yeah.

Classic hairdresser situation.

I mean, it feels rude, but in my mind, I've also wondered, like, would you actually be relieved if I was just on my phone the whole time and then you could have a break from like being on all the time, you know?

That is totally fine with me.

Like, if you want to be on your phone, I do think of it that way.

Okay, great.

I'll have a break.

I'll just like think about my own things that are going on, organize my brain.

I'm just glad that you're here.

Most hairdressers are very much prepared to talk all day.

I think.

I don't know.

No?

I don't know.

Julie, I can't stop thinking about how much fun we had with Erin DeRosa and Mimi Kraft at Sense Salon in Washington, D.C.

Yeah, I mean, they are the women who actually do my hair, and it was very fun to get like a peek behind the scenes of what they're thinking the whole time.

I feel like if you want to talk, that's amazing.

It is really entertaining and fun to have conversation and to have like

good conversation.

But if you don't want to talk, don't try to talk because then it's like really hard to have a conversation.

And then it's even more work to like keep it going and try to like fill the silence or whatever.

And I'm very comfortable with silence and very comfortable just like doing my thing and, you know, someone else doing their thing.

But if you do want to have a conversation that's also always welcome

I'm curious what is it about small talk that makes you so nervous I don't okay to clarify I don't know that it makes me nervous all the time I think what's interesting about it is it's like

you can't really get around it.

Any relationship that you're going to have like has to start with a conversation and you usually start with like the safe topics, the small talk, the this, the that.

that so it's more a situation where I am trapped on the train with an acquaintance I don't know that well and we have 20 minutes to fill and I got five minutes of material if I'm getting my hair cut or anywhere where

you're just trapped with either an acquaintance or a stranger for a long time

pulling the shape up a little bit yeah you like the layers longer longish but you still like to have enough and you have to kind of navigate like how much are we gonna talk to each other what are we gonna talk about would they rather I just left them alone, but we're both too polite to say so.

I do get in my head a lot about that and I find it very hard to relax sometimes if I am receiving a service.

I don't know.

And like probably if I was just normal and like relaxed and enjoyed the situation, it would make them more comfortable.

Like I'm probably putting off a vibe.

It can be extra challenging when the terms of that relationship are not really established in any way.

Like just having a conversation with that person doesn't necessarily mean you're moving towards friendship.

Yeah, you're right.

Like the kind of people that are in your life, but that relationship is not necessarily going to grow from what it already is,

but you still need to interact with them and perhaps semi-regularly and just like, how do you approach that?

Like the barista you see every day and you know that she knows that you always get the iced vanilla latte and she knows that you know that she knows, but you still just like order it freshly every time?

Yes, yes.

And And you don't ever acknowledge anything?

Do you both consider yourself extroverts?

No.

Oh, no.

No.

Hard no.

Extreme no.

Well, then how do you sit here and make small talk all day every day?

Does it exhaust you?

I once heard that introverts like to have

like one-on-one deeper conversations whereas extroverts are more comfortable with like typical small talk.

I am not interested in small talk.

I want to get right into the real talk immediately.

And I definitely don't want to go to like a party, honestly, basically ever or be in a crowd where I have to like make small talk with a lot of people because that is exhausting to me.

But having like deep connections and one-on-one like deeper conversations with people is I like that and I'm good at it.

Well, how do you define small talk then?

For me, small talk is like, oh, it's cold out.

Yeah, it's cold out.

Oh, do you like cold?

No.

Oh, yeah, me too.

And that's like really boring.

Oh, are you, how was your weekend?

Good?

Oh, cool.

I want to know

what happened.

Well, are you coming in hot with your clients?

Like, do you believe in God?

You know what I mean?

Like, it is like lighter.

Yeah.

I mean, sometimes I'm coming in hot.

Sometimes like.

If I'm like, oh, how was your weekend?

Great.

I will be like, did you, did you, what happened?

Did anything?

I will usually say like, did anything crazy happen?

Did anything crazy happen?

Did anybody go to the hospital?

Like, I want to get straight into it.

If somebody was like at a party, you can tell when somebody comes in on a Saturday morning and they were at a party, you know, the night before, and you really are like, what happened last night?

What went down?

I do like getting

straight into the details.

I guess I'll also say, like, I don't come in, hey, how's your hair?

Do you believe in God?

It's more like,

it's more like somehow it'll come up somewhere in the conversation, you know, you'll be talking about their family or like their parents or whatever.

And then it's like, oh, how were you raised?

Were you raised religiously?

It sort of evolves.

And then I will say, well, do you believe in God?

So that's a real example that has happened.

Oh, yeah, for sure, for sure.

But I like to have conversation like that with people.

And that's like one of my favorite things about this job is having real conversations like that.

She gets the very most dirt out of people because I love a good story.

She is so genuinely curious that even if somebody

maybe was not going into a conversation thinking they were going to reveal a detail, she will get it out of them.

I will.

Because of genuine curiosity.

I will.

Yeah.

That is like a lot of people are sort of in denial about what is happening in their situation.

And because we've heard so so many stories that are similar and we are like, no,

like, this is what's really happening.

And we're like, girl, no.

Yeah.

Well, this is what's happening.

This is what's happening.

And then, like, come to find out, like, maybe their next visit or their visit after that.

They're like, that is what's happening.

Because we, that is the value in

good small talk and conversation is that you learn from other people's experiences.

And so then those things, everything repeats itself.

Like nothing's really a new thing.

So somebody comes in and you're like, I know what's happening there.

I think small talk gets a lot of hate, but even if it's a little boring, it serves a purpose.

So those like basic neutral topics that people love to hate on, like how's the weather?

Like, sure is a hot one out there.

Like, those serve a purpose of being something neutral that can smooth the path of our interactions.

But I think sometimes my producer brain that wants to cut to the story and I'm not always as delicate in the way I phrase my questions.

And my intent is not to be offensive, but maybe just to connect with the person in the way I know best or maybe be respectfully personal and try to bridge that gap.

So you, your approach to small talk then is to like try to get personal as quickly as possible.

Not uncomfortably so, but I do struggle with the repeated,

how's the weather with someone I see every day.

It's like,

let's move this conversation along.

We've seen each other, we have some basic context of who each other is.

I feel like I thrive on that surface level, just the sort of Seinfeldian, like observational comedy of like, these are things that are happening around us that like I can remark upon and do a little bit with you and then like tip my hat and walk away.

Once we transition to something that is a little more personal, that is where I feel like a little bumpy.

In our conversation with Aaron and Mimi, it really wasn't that awkward surface-level kind of small talk that I think people fear.

Right, and it seems like they were really naturally cognizant of people's different comfort levels and what would be an appropriate story to share.

And they were sort of able to read the room and read the space of the conversation.

And, you know, they're experts at this.

They do this every day.

Yeah, reading the room is a skill for sure.

And I think for those of us who aren't quite so practiced as they are, I wanted to understand more so what can cause a seemingly innocuous conversation to take a turn for the awkward and how we navigate it when that happens and what just the barriers are to getting out of our own heads and just chatting.

Tai Toshiro is a social scientist who writes about awkwardness and his book called Awkward: The Science of Why We're Socially Awkward and Why That's Awesome explores a lot of these social and behavioral trends specific to adults in the United States.

He helps people think through

how to

be in social spaces and feel just a bit more confident.

He could also probably help me share this intro in a slightly less awkward way.

One of the great things about studying awkwardness is that everybody has had an awkward moment.

Let's say, for example, you're giving a presentation and you have an undone zipper.

That's super awkward, super embarrassing, but it's actually not that big of a deal.

It's just an uncomfortable deviation from actually a small social expectation.

If you had a spinach in your teeth during a first date, the same thing.

It's actually a really small kind of social expectation, but we have this really powerful emotional reaction to it.

Some of my close friends had moved to new cities and I would go visit them and we'd go out to parties or might go to a bar or something.

And some of these friends were awkward.

And

You know, I'd watch them in these social interactions, meeting new people.

And it was just heartbreaking because they would be their regular awkward self.

And you could see the other folks losing interest and saying, I gotta go get another drink or something.

And

yeah, just that sad sort of excusing themselves for no good reason.

And I thought to myself, like, well, this is heartbreaking for my friend who's trying to make new acquaintances or new friends in the city.

But I thought it's also too bad for the other person.

Because

here's this awkward person who has tremendous moral character, who's super interesting, who's been an amazing friend to me, but they ruled out any chance of future social interaction based on, you know, three or four minutes of kind of chit chat.

And so I had this thought, like, if the awkward person could skip the first five minutes of a social interaction, I actually think they'd be all right.

What exactly was it that your friend was doing that made people want to leave and go get another drink?

What was so awkward about it?

This friend

is, still, a space invader.

So

in the U.S., the typical amount of space you give someone is about 18 inches.

Oh, I thought you meant like the video game.

Okay.

Oh, no,

no, not that old school, but he's a space invader.

So he's probably about 10 inches, which is way too close.

And that makes people feel uncomfortable.

He also has trouble with voice modulation, which can certainly happen with awkward people.

Speaks a little bit too loud, probably for other people's comfort.

But, you know, I I guess when you take a step back from it, my thought is, you know, who cares?

Like, if you can get past those little clumsy moments at the start, you find this, you know, really wonderful person.

So,

you know, I just wanted to see, like, are there ways that the awkward person can navigate those awkward moments a little bit more smoothly?

But on the other hand, for people who aren't awkward, can they have a little more empathy for the awkward person's situation?

So in your book, you write that some people are more prone to awkwardness than others.

Where do you think you fall?

Oh, boy.

I'm pretty awkward.

So, when I was a kid, I was very awkward.

And I think in adulthood, I can pass for socially fluent in most situations, but I certainly still have my moments.

Yeah, you're doing great.

You're doing great.

So, with that in mind, I'm curious, can you just walk me through what goes through your mind when you say enter a party where you only know one or two people.

Like, what is the strategy that runs through your mind at that time?

So, you know, before the social event occurs, I do get some social anxiety.

I think maybe the difference for someone who's awkward is these feelings of anxiety aren't irrational.

So, I'll give more thought to the small details, like, what am I going to wear?

What would be an appropriate thing to bring?

What time am I going to get there?

So, I just have a little self-talk before I go into these situations.

I call it my mental preparation.

And I'll just say, hey, you're, you don't know anybody.

You're nervous about that.

And, and that's okay.

You've been in these situations before and you can do it, but I need to have a more assertive attitude than would be natural for me.

When I get there, there's kind of this funny thing that happens.

So let's say I go with a friend.

And we walk into the party and it's in full swing.

It's, you know, pretty common.

Someone might say something like, oh, there's a really good vibe here.

There's a really good vibe in here.

And to me, that is totally bewildering how they discern that vibe within a few seconds.

So awkward people, when they enter a social situation, they're not all at once kind of evaluating what's going on.

Instead, what they're doing is they're looking at individual pieces of information and then kind of putting it together almost like a puzzle to figure out what the situation is like and how they should behave.

So it takes longer for me to read the room, I guess, and then feel comfortable enough to get in there and interact smoothly with other people.

And then when I get into it, I just try to be honest, actually.

And so I would approach people.

If you have the uncomfortable situation where you've talked to somebody and they've moved on to something else and you're standing there by yourself, you know, I'll just approach a group and I'll say, hey, I'm Ty.

I'm new here.

Do you mind if I join you?

And that might sound a little daunting to some folks, but I always find that people are really receptive to that.

It took a little bit of boldness maybe to say something like that.

And I think people appreciate that.

So why do people feel awkward in that awkward moment where they've broken one minor expectation?

Is it the same thing as social anxiety or is it a unique feeling?

Yeah, so social anxiety is more of a forward-looking kind of emotion.

So when we feel social anxiety, the core of that is we have some irrational fear that we're going to mess up or we're going to make a fool of ourselves in a social situation.

With awkwardness, it's more of this just in the moment, very present kind of feeling.

And it even comes along with things like a racing heart or your muscles might tense.

Of course, one of the hallmarks is that you might blush, right?

And people usually feel horrible about that.

They think I've just made this awkward moment worse by blushing so blushing actually sends a signal hey I just did something awkward I feel bad about that and I'm blushing I'm sending you this social signal and people actually really appreciate that so awkward moments aren't the worst thing in in the world but um you know they can be recovered from almost all the time.

And actually just being honest about the awkward moment that just took place can actually be beneficial for building some trust with another person.

So do you think that you've gotten more comfortable with socializing over time or do you just feel like you've learned strategies?

I think it's that I've learned strategies first and then the social comfort came after that.

So let me give you a quick example maybe from childhood about some of these strategies I had to learn.

Sure.

So when we would go to Wendy's to get a hamburger, my parents would park the car and they would turn around and they say, Ty, it's time to mentally prepare.

And I would shake my head yes, because I knew exactly what this meant.

And what it was, was this kind of Socratic dialogue where they would ask me a series of questions.

And it would help me prepare for what the expectations would be in the social situation.

And also help me think about what I needed to do with my social behaviors to handle it well and appropriately.

So they'd say things like, well, where are we?

I'd say, well, well, we're at Wendy's.

And it's almost like a surprise.

Like, oh, yeah, here we are.

We're at Wendy's.

What's the first thing you need to look for when you step inside the door?

And

I would say, well, I need to look and see if there's a line.

And that's because sometimes I would go in and just shoot straight to the front.

And not because I was trying to cut or cheat.

And this is hard for some non-awkward people to believe but because I didn't see the line or didn't register with me.

I was so narrowly focused on the hamburger and the fries that I would just not see all of this social information off to the side.

So once I was in line, you know, I need to figure out what to order.

I need to look the cashier in the eye, say please, say thank you, not whip around with my tray and spill my drink all over the people behind me like I had done a couple times previously.

So

this would happen not just once, this happened dozens of times for various kinds of social situations.

And my folks would need me to get into the habit of thinking about, hey, what's the goal in this situation?

What are the small expectations you're going to encounter?

And then what are the behaviors that you need to execute to be socially fluent in this situation?

So I think with, you know, most kids, you you could say, hey, make sure you're polite, you know, when you're ordering or something like that.

And they would think of all the little behaviors that go into that.

But for the awkward kid, that's not intuitive.

And so you just need to break it down into the component parts.

And once you do that, you know,

I was pretty good.

I mean, if you walked with me into a Wendy's now, I'm pretty smooth.

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Like

connections and one-on-one, like deeper conversations with people.

Like, I didn't always know how to get into a conversation and connect with somebody.

I just learned it when I started doing hair.

And for people who don't really know how to do it, I kind of was thinking, is there like a go-to question or something?

But it really depends on the setting.

Yeah.

So do you actually

want to or feel comfortable talking about yourself with clients, or do you actively like keep the focus on them and their stories because you maybe don't want to share?

I feel comfortable.

I'll share anything.

Sometimes I feel like I don't have anything that interesting to share.

And so then I don't want to talk about myself because it's like, oh, are you taking vacations?

No.

Okay, cool.

That's a lot of people really are.

That is their number one

personal question.

Do you have any trips planned?

Yeah, that is

very guilty of that.

I'm so guilty of that because it's like it's not too personal, right?

But maybe it gives us something to talk about.

Yeah, because it's my conversation filler when I have like pretty much nothing left.

I say, Do you have any trips planned?

Because I am like, we gotta like, we gotta drum something up here.

It could really go somewhere where you're talking about a trip and like fun things, but it all the potential for a dead end is

high.

Yeah, that's how you know you're scraping the bottom bottom of the barrel, I guess.

Yeah, sort of like talking about the weather, you know?

Yeah.

Okay.

That's how I feel.

I'm gonna be self-conscious about that question from now on.

Sorry, I have to do that.

No, no, no, that's mean to me.

I feel like,

yeah.

But that does remind me of something I wanted to ask too, because I feel like a lot of what we've been talking about is like ways that the small talk manifests like very uniquely to your job.

And so

how much do you feel like the skills that y'all have here translate into the real world versus what is pretty specific to like this interaction in this relationship?

I feel like it translates

exactly the same like immediately.

I think you're really good at that.

I struggle with that because sometimes being in the hair salon I'm really in my comfort zone in this weird way and I'll see the same person at like the coffee shop or something and I sort of stumble on my words and I sort of stumble.

I don't I get like a little awkward and I think that's more my I get some social anxiety going on if it's people I don't know and this goes back to your introvert versus extrovert question

if it's people I don't know I can do that like small talk thing to an extent but then I I can't go all the way I can't get all the way because it's a bigger setting there's more people

I'm really good in that like sort of one-on-one

moment.

Like even the hair salon, it really is, I think, like a safe space in a community because

who am I going to tell?

You don't know.

I'm not so invested that telling me is going to have like any major impact in their personal life.

So they can get things off their chest and

feel safe that it's, it's not like a risk.

Right.

Right.

And I do agree if you're not having those relationships in your community,

you are missing out on just sort of like,

it's personal, but it's casual and there's.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know how we get to a place where we just accept that feeling awkward won't kill us.

Yeah.

But I'm not there yet.

I'm curious if part of the stress too is that once you start a conversation with someone and if you do start to feel awkward, and maybe you're not comfortable being honest right away about the fact that you're feeling awkward, and you want to dip out of the conversation, it can be hard to do that.

For me, a situation that can cause some anxiety is if I am trapped with, say, like an acquaintance on a train, and maybe that train ride is half an hour long.

And what are we going to do?

And I would love to tell you about a man that I once knew,

an acquaintance of mine from college, who I truly would not remember at all were it not for this moment.

He was a friend of a friend.

And one day we were both on the same train going down to Chicago together.

I went to school outside of Chicago.

And so this was like a good 40, 45 minute train ride.

And he pulled the most like amazing Uno reverse ninja trick I've ever seen in conversation to this day, which is, you know, we got on the train and I'm like, oh God, okay, I have to talk to him because we know each other.

And so we did the very classic like, hey, how's it going?

How's the one thing that I know about you?

It's still good.

How's the one thing that I know about you?

It's fine.

And then we ran out of material.

Uh-oh.

And he just said, it's been so great talking to you.

I'm going to go read my book now.

And then we both sat down on opposite sides of the train and we read our books and we took that half hour train ride down to Chicago.

And when I got off the train, we did like a friendly wave.

And I actually don't think we ever saw each other again.

But I've thought about this man so regularly for the past like 10 years because he just handled that interaction in such a smooth way that you almost never see.

I think we feel kind of more awkward than ever about these kinds of things, meeting new people or the conversation in the elevator, and it seems to stop people.

Why do you say you think that we're more fearful of awkwardness than we used to be?

I think maybe some of it has to do with the fact that, you know, we don't don't have to interact with people as much as we used to.

We can do it through our social media or we can get absorbed in our phones or stay in the comfort of our home and stream some show.

There's all these outs from actually being face to face with people and going through

those uncomfortable moments of trying to get to know somebody for the first time or dealing with the prospect that they might reject us, that maybe they don't want to hang out.

And that's a scary thing as well.

So I think there's these alternatives about how we can spend our time that are kind of semi-social or faux-social, but I think that's actually damaging because it keeps us from doing the hard work of getting face-to-face and actually working to build a friendship.

What do you mean by semi-social, faux-social?

Well, you know, if you're texting back and forth with somebody, that's fine.

But it's obviously not as good, right, as sitting down with them for a long dinner and getting into

just a deep conversation.

And same thing with social media.

We've kind of put our best foot forward on social media, and we might have some nice interactions, but they're not as gratifying as a face-to-face interaction with somebody.

Is the texting and the faux social interactions to some degree maybe like our

way of preparing to go to Wendy's?

Yeah, definitely.

That is a good point.

In online dating, for example, you might send messages back and forth or whatever, and that kind of gives you a sense of the person, gets the interaction rolling a little bit before you actually meet up when all you really want to do is get face-to-face and figure out if there might be some kind of chemistry here.

But even in platonic situations, it's the same thing.

We can get stuck mentally preparing for something that should have happened, you know, a long time ago.

Yeah.

Well, one consequence of this fear of awkwardness is people go to parties or they go to bars and they only talk to people they already know.

Have you noticed that in your life?

Oh, for sure.

You know, that's another thing kind of

makes me just want to go over and say things I have no business saying to other people.

Like what?

I just want to say like, go meet other people.

You know, you're standing here in your group of three you came in with and you look semi-sad, you know.

Go talk to these other people you want to talk to.

So how can we break out of that?

Do we really need to break out of that?

Or is it fine to just embrace the safety of hanging out with my existing friends at a party?

My bias would be I don't think that's okay.

You know, there's all this disconnection going on.

So the average person could benefit from more friends and certainly benefit from more friends that they've built some quality intimacy with and they feel they can go to in a time of need.

So if we go with that perspective, then yeah, you know, we should break out of our shell and we should cross that junior high dance floor of sorts and go talk to somebody new, knowing that this person might reject us or knowing that the interaction might be a little bit awkward, but that's okay.

I mean, to some degree, it's a justified fear.

You probably will feel awkward.

Like you actually aren't going to make it through this life, like without being awkward in social situations.

But I think like Ty made me realize that part of what makes things so awkward sometimes is trying to pretend that they're not.

Like all of his advice would boil down to just be honest.

Like just go up to those people that you don't know at the party and say, I don't know anyone at the party.

Can I hang out with you?

And like I would never in a million years have thought to say that to somebody.

Like I would probably try to be like nonchalant by the punch bowl and like sidle my way into a conversation and hope it was just cool and nobody noticed that I didn't really belong there.

You know, some of what is

really challenging about small talk is it's so situational.

Small talk with someone you admire on a train is different than small talk on a first date.

And then there's also each individual person's reactions and like whether they want to be left alone and how open they are to conversation and how awkward you feel and how awkward they feel.

But I think there can be a middle path where you read the room a bit, maybe you have some questions in your back pocket.

And, you know, there's certainly times where I leave my headphones in and I'm looking at my phone and I don't really want to be spoken to either.

But I think we have to bear in mind what we miss out on if we do that all the time.

Yes.

And I think that's exactly what I wonder: if what gets lost is all of us getting used to not trying to start up a conversation conversation with anyone

out of out of fear or out of fear that it won't lead anywhere or doesn't mean anything.

Yeah.

I remember Mimi and Aaron talking a lot about how fueled they actually are by all the conversations that they have at work.

And like not just purely for entertainment value, but also like feeling like these conversations are meaningful and they are bringing something unique and special into their lives.

Although it was reassuring for me to hear that they struggle with it sometimes too.

I was surprised by that.

Yeah.

I know.

It's just that they were interested in people and just like having a genuine curiosity for the person that's in front of you fuels conversation.

As meta as that is, we gotta talk about it.

We gotta talk.

On that note, Becca, it's been so great making a podcast with you.

And I'm gonna go read my book now.

That's all for this week's episode of How to Talk to People.

This episode was produced by me, Rebecca Rashid, and hosted by Julie Beck.

Editing by Jocelyn Frank and Claudina Baith.

Fact-check by Ena Alvarado.

Our engineer is Rob Smersiak.

If you want to hear more from Becca and Julie, check out the entire How to Talk to People wherever you get your podcasts and look out for a fresh season coming soon.

So, it might be that I've been in this booth.

I live here now, so that might be changing my personality.

The oxygen is in short supply in this place.