I’ve been researching some videos I’m deluding myself into publishing on my YouTube channel in January. They are about solo introvert travel, specifically how various aspects of travel work for introverts and some of the misconceptions.
One topic is how travel inverts the nature of conversations to almost remove the need for small talk. In researching and writing this video a take on the topic seemed applicable here since the two places have different, if very small, audiences.
The FORD Method
What made me realise small talk advice doesn’t work for introverts is that a lot of the advice is based on the wrong presumption. The presumption is that introverts don’t know what to talk about. Being shy, anxious and not knowing what to talk about might correlate with introversion, at best, but I’m not convinced these things are the problem. Let’s look at the FORD methods advice as an example.
The FORD method stands for Family, Occupation, Recreation and Dreams, pillars of what to discuss. The challenge is these fall into two categories: too private or boring. It’s not that the introvert doesn’t know these topics exist; they’d rather not engage with them as the entry vector. Let’s have a look at each.
Family suggests you’d talk about whether you have siblings? How did you meet your partner? The problem I have with this is: mind your own business. I do get it; people will be shaking their heads and thinking this take sounds terrible, but this is someone I’m having small talk with. I don’t know them. Why would I begin to divulge these personal details? I do the same at work, as only certain people know how many brothers and sisters I have or how I met my wife (when she wasn’t my ex, etc).
Occupation is a safe topic of conversation, but it also has two challenges. First, God help me. Why would I want to talk about work, especially outside of work? Second, is it really that interesting? Unless you have a job with unique and interesting facets, who cares? I certainly don’t care enough to bore you with it.
Recreation is a funny one, as I made a video on this. You never really want to ask an introvert how they spend their time because you don’t care about the answer. At most, you’d find it perplexing. I internally die when people ask me what I do with my free time. I cut to TV shows and hope we have something in common or travel. They’re not interested in the obsessive time I spend reading, watching, playing, or thinking about those things.
Sharing your dreams is like, what, the absolute hell? You’d think it would be an introvert win, but context is everything. I’m unsure if I want to reveal my career aspirations or be put on the spot about my deepest desires. I’ll be fair and acknowledge this one does have legs, but to repeat, context is everything.
This is only one example of small-talk advice, but they all have similar themes. They are based on the person not knowing what to say and offering similar veins of topics to use. I think an introvert does know what to say. They have significant challenges with the ego-driven and shallow nature of these conversations; they don’t find themselves naturally that interesting as a person, and it’s draining generally.
The problem is the nature Phatic conversations themselves, not the issue of what to talk about.
A different entry point
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
– Eleanor Roosevelt
This is the quote I found when researching one of the videos. If we ignore the vein of elitism for a second and concentrate on the concept of ideas, events and people, this quote tells us a lot. The key thing to understand is that small talk broadly travels from people to ideas, quite often not getting beyond the first stage and a superficial version. Introverts want conversations to go left to right in the quote; small talk tends to go right to left if you’re lucky.
Introverted conversations often start with ideas, and they discuss aspects of themselves more deeply when they get to people.
For introverts, the focal point is internal, with each participant bringing the other inside and working things out there.
– Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life is Your Hidden Strength
In a large social gathering, why does an introvert seem less engaged until a certain point, and then you’re surprised they deeply engage? If you thought about it momentarily, you’d realise that one or two things have happened. Either the people in the conversation have gotten smaller and more intimate, or the conversation has moved from left to right.
This is why introverts don’t engage well with small talk, typical team building or ice beaker culture. It doesn’t work for us. We do form connections, often very deep ones. In the right environments, we thrive. For example, some introverts find that conversations can be ideas first when travelling, so we value these serendipitous connections. Similarly, at work, we find team building a bit of a pain; there is every chance we’ve already formed deeper connections with a network of people we need to do well at our jobs without team building or icebreakers.
And, Finally…
This is another example of how people get introverts wrong. Personally, at least for me, small talk advice tends to come across as being for someone with social anxiety or being shy, which can be true of an introvert or an extrovert. I’m not sure it’s specifically designed to help someone who is an introvert despite sometimes being labelled as for them.
We often know how to conduct small talk, but the problem is that our need is for something else, and we don’t value the small talk activity or the nature of Phatic conversations beyond the briefest of moments.