Small talk is a fickle thing. It is not taught or preached but is one of the most useful tools that anybody can have in life. It is key to maintaining and starting relationships. Its utility is unrivalled in acquiring what is most valuable in this world; friends. However, it can too easily become one of the most constrictive forces of nature: habit.
If we are to take small talk as idle conversation that serves no greater purpose than to while away the dreary hands of time, then it becomes odd it should ever have developed in the first place. As the most intelligent species on this earth, it's reasonable to assume our conversing would be equally as grand. Instead, it is mostly small talk. The reason this makes small talk odd is that other animals do not partake in it. The finches do not chat about the weather, nor the bulls about the breeze. All animal communication serves some greater purpose, whether it be a warning about predators or the finding of a mate. From this we can determine that we aren't living up to our potential as better developed beings, instead filling the potential with small banal comments (but this view is pre-slanted with the bias that small talk is bad). Equally, we could also argue that idle conversation is a result of our better developed nature (which casts small talk in a better light). I, for one, don't know which prospect is more terrifying.
I shall thus shamefully cower away from that avenue of thought, and move towards the rules that bind small talk, on which there is no real agreement. Depending on the persons involved conversation can be as free and flowing as a river; becoming banter but also becoming more likely to offend. At the opposite extreme, it can be stifling and stiff, full of awkward pauses as each party searches for that spark the conversation needs. A conversation where safety and propriety are two important elements. The place where a piece of small talk lands on this spectrum not only depends on the people involved but how well they know each other and, perhaps, how drunk they are. The people involved, having taken all those factors into account, then act according to their version of common sense. You and I will have done this many times. A sense of appropriateness this advanced is a purely human trait and given how much idle conversation relies on it, supports the idea that small talk is a result of our highly developed nature, not a failing within it. For those that doubt these unspoken and changing laws of small talk exist, to which we respond, they should first consider social anxiety, which stems from not knowing these rules and how to act accordingly.
At this point it would be appropriate to mention that the rules and regulations of small talk, along with the accompanying burden of what is proper, is what has made the English so historically good at it. I am, of course, referring to the great English knack of structuring sentences like onions; where the true meaning is covered by layers upon layers of lines. Although this innate and unfortunate talent is slowly dying, an innocuous comment such as "With the greatest respect..." can be interpreted (correctly) among the wrong people as "I think you are an idiot." This example, while extreme, highlights the danger that adding too many nuances to small talk can bring. Small talk too easily becomes important big talk, which we attach greater importance to and thus becomes inherently more dangerous. If small talk is the result of our stronger and more creative human intellect, we can see that building on it in the way we have other things, is more harmful than beneficial.
Small talk is a fickle thing. At the start of this post, I said it's habitual nature was one of it's most constrictive qualities. I was wrong. The constrictive qualities of idle conversation lie not in habit, but the hidden rules we must unconsciously tread whenever we engage in it. I still believe, however, that small talk is a fickle thing. It is fickle because of the way it is essential but not taught, and how it can quite easily convert into larger, and more dangerous conversation. It is fickle because how to deal with it changes from circumstance to circumstance. However, the most frightening thing about small talk is not how tricky it is, but how it stems from our intelligence, and is not a failing of it. If this rule-stricken and only occasionally joyful process is one of the few things we can use to separate humanity from animals, that is a scary thought.
