We're Talkin' Small Talk

02.25.2011

Lucas Molandes

We talked about depression, suicide and our friends who had died before their time. We didn't dress up these topics in sentimentality or theatrics. It wasn't sad. It was necessary. We're two adults who have had too many polite conversations with strangers. We could have talked about irrelevant topics like the weather or work. We could have suffered through the prosaic small talk that whittles down the human spirit, yet reveals nothing in the process. There's no topic of discussion that is ever more depressing than our inability connect to another person.

This is going to be a tough one to write without coming off as pretentious, but how much small talk are we meant to endure in life and what is the subtext to all small talk? Just because I'm telling you something I think is profound doesn't make it any more relevant to your life than traffic or the weather. If I'm talking at you instead of too you, I'm ignoring your humanity in favor of my need to indulge certain thoughts; I'm just talking to prove what I know so that you know I know it. There is no connection there. Any conversation that does not result in a connection could be appraised as small-talk, but then again, who's to say we should we connect with everyone? Some people need walls. First dates are perfect examples of this. Honesty is great way to maintain a long term relationship, but it's also a great way to ruin a short term one.

(It's raining today, I should mention. I love it when it rains because I can look outside and say, "well, I guess now I can't do all the shit I wasn't going to do anyway.)

Last night I saw an angry comedian who told the crowd that comedy was ego driven. Then he proceeded to yell at the audience that he didn't like them. My gut reaction was, "don't put that on us. You've already made it clear that this is all about you anyway." It was nice to be an audience member. It was nice to see that his comedic toupee didn't quite cover as much as he thought it did. That which he wants us to see reveals what he really is and that depends on who's watching. Or maybe he was having a bad night. Nothing wrong with that. Pobody’s nerfect.

We use small talk to fill the disparity between who we want to be and how people see us. It is the enabler that allows us to wear our ill fitting toupee because we don't bring up the flaws in anyone elses.

A person can wrap their confusion in aggressive rantings and hope it comes across as 'real' or 'honest'. A person can dress up language in wonderful allusions to great beings and forest nymphs and hope the aesthetics lure you into a sense of depth. But is that verbal-garnish a distraction from how empty the plate is. And then the question, how can something so empty feel so cluttered?

Honesty isn't cluttered. It's fluid and agile and reveals how lumbering affectation is. It's a dance. It's not flowery or aggressive for the sake of aesthetics. The aesthetic of honesty is in its simplicity. Its naturalness. Its organic extension of the self. Of course, these are just my thoughts. What do they reveal about me? We don't have to talk about that. The rain stopped. I wonder if it's going to be a cold one tonight?