Maybe We’re Overthinking Small Talk, but That’s Just My Opinion

The other day I joined a virtual conversation hosted by the Interchange Institute, where people from all over compared how their cultures treat small talk.

Someone mentioned that in Finland, silence can be a sign of respect. I laughed and said that in Brazil, silence is the one everyone rushes to rescue.

What began with polite chuckles turned into that quiet kind of reflection that lingers after the call ends.

In the United States, small talk often feels like a handshake made of words — a quick test for friendliness.

In Japan, it can seem unnecessary, even intrusive.

Across Northern Europe, efficiency usually wins over chatter.

And in Brazil, any pause feels like an invitation to fill the air.

Connection, it turns out, is cultural. Yet so many of us still measure social ease by how quickly we can think of something to say.

Maybe that’s the problem. We’ve mistaken performance for presence.

We worry about being clever or likable when the real art lies in curiosity — in the pause before the response.

A good conversation isn’t a monologue wearing dialogue’s clothes.

It’s a small, shared focus — two people turning their attention toward the same moment.

Instead of rehearsing openers (“Crazy weather, huh?”), what if we practiced showing up? Listening. Noticing. Asking.

A simple “Tell me more about that” can land far deeper than the perfect joke.

Intercultural researchers often remind us that meaning lives less in the words than in the spaces between them.

In high-context cultures, tone and pause carry weight; silence can be a gesture of care.

Elsewhere, it reads as distance.

But everywhere, real listening still makes people feel seen.

So maybe the next time we step into conversation — in the office kitchen, on a bus, waiting outside school — we could ask not Am I good at small talk? but Am I leaving room for someone else’s story?

Because small talk was never meant to impress.

It was meant to connect.

To remind us, for a brief moment, that being human is something we do together.