Collegiate Times

None of us can deny the fact that small talk is a significant part of our lives. It's the conversation that we all have at least 10 times every day — it begins with a conversation starter but turns into a bland and uneventful interaction. You walk by someone you know on the way to class and say, "Hey, how are you?"

They reply with something like, "Pretty good, you?" Then you reciprocate with the predictable "Good."

And that's it — that's the end. But some of you seem to think that what just happened there can't be considered a real conversation. That's not okay with me.

What I don't get when it comes to small talk is why if no one likes it, then why do we all still do it? Whether it's with your roommate, an acquaintance or the woman who wakes up at 3 a.m. to make those delicious biscuits at D2 each morning, we engage in this vicious cycle of small talk, and all it does is hinders us from breaking through the surface with each other.

It makes me ask myself the question, what's better: to small talk or to not talk at all? It's not that people don't enjoy being asked how they're doing, but the fact that so many conversations seem to end after the initial "how are you" bothers me.

It's at its worst when you're walking to class and you see a person coming the opposite direction and just know you'll have to stop and talk with him or her.

For me, it's become almost like the old video game Frogger, battling my way across the Drillfield, trying to avoid potential run-ins where I'll just have to subject myself to draining small talk.

I did an experiment at work, asking people I knew how they were doing as they entered the coffee shop. It being a coffee shop in the morning, you would expect people to have valid reasons for needing caffeine, but my findings were astounding.

Almost every person answered the question, "how are you?" with something along the lines of "I'm so tired," or "I've gotten no sleep."

Since when did "tired" become an emotion — or in a few cases, a permanent state of being? Conversations have become a competition of one-upmanship about who has the busiest schedule and more tiring life.

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