Something to small talk about

I keep thinking that my dislike of small talk is because I never know how small it should be.  (Is there such a thing as medium or large talk, I wonder?  How about XXL talk?)

It seems to me that if talk is too small, there isn’t much point in talking at all – note: make that the first line of a poem one day! – but sometimes I have trouble judging the size of the conversation I’m in.  What do I talk about that’s small enough to be light and casual, yet large enough to still be sort-of interesting?

This endless mental scan-and-categorise routine means I’m at a loss when someone asks me a casual question, like: “What have you been up to recently?”

Suddenly, I can’t think of anything.  Or at least, anything that sounds interesting enough to tell them about.

I was reminded of this a couple of weeks ago, when David and I met my dad in Waitrose’s café for lunch (we weren’t originally going to Waitrose, but we ended up in there because… no, that story’s way too boring).  It was a grey day and there was a problem with the café’s fridge, so hardly anything we wanted to eat was available.  We trudged over to a crumb-splattered table with our barren tray of only half-wanted nibbles, and we thought about things to say.  Or at least, I did.

“What have you been up to recently?” asked Dad, politely.  As usual I couldn’t think of anything interesting, so I shrugged and said, “Nothing much, just work”.  But David was more vocal.  He told Dad about our tentative plans to move away from Essex.  He mentioned a play we saw recently, and then he talked about how we were going to spend the Easter break, which was clearing out our under-the-stairs cupboard (Jesus, hold us back!)

As he spoke, I realised I could have said all of those things myself, but I didn’t because they sounded dull in my head.

They didn’t sound dull when David said them, though.  He’d just straightforwardly answered Dad’s question without overthinking it, or worrying if his answer was interesting enough.  Why should he?

It’s strange when I think about how much I love the mundane details of other people’s lives.  I’m trained to listen out for them; those magical, illuminating snippets that are part of the reason why I’m both a reader and a writer.  Those details are anything but boring to me.  They make a person come alive.

In the spirit of small talk practice, then, I’m going to mention a few things I’ve been up to recently, even though you didn’t ask.

OK?

Started a new fitness program

I never talk about what I do for exercise, mostly because that actually is dull.  But just for background, I’ve been working out regularly ever since I was 14.  Back then, as I was washing the dishes after a Sunday lunch, my mum told me I looked pregnant (I wasn’t).

What started as a painful chore turned into a loveable habit, and over 30 years later I’m a pretty advanced exerciser.  But this new online program I’ve started – 80 Day Obsession – is the most brutal one yet.  It’s around an hour a day for six days a week.  It might actually kill me.

(You’re supposed to combine the exercise with ‘healthy meal prep’ in little plastic containers, but I don’t do that part.  Something about measuring out precise food portions and decanting them into plastic boxes feels inherently soul-destroying… or like I’m preparing cat-meals for when I go on holiday).

Read some interesting memoirs

Alexei Navalny was funny, kind-hearted, self-deprecating, principled, and brave.  I wanted to read Patriot because it feels important to learn more about good people, now that the bad ones seem to be running everything in sight.

It’s an emotional juggernaut of a book, especially Navalny’s prison diary which is horribly sad and frustrating to read.  But it’s also a powerful testament to the fact that, as humans, we can endure a whole lot more than we think.  Everyone should read it.

The other book I’ve read recently is Sarah Wynn-Williams’s Careless People, about her time working for Facebook.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Facebook doesn’t care about you, and if you want actual jaw-dropping proof of that, here it is.  You’ll want to delete your Facebook account immediately after reading this book.  You should.

Lost some Word documents and had a wrangle with a couple of tech ‘helpers’

On Wednesday, four Word documents I’d been working on for a client disappeared.  Just… vanished.

My heart dived into the fizzing depths of my stomach.  I’d spent most of the previous week working on those files and if they really were gone for good I’d be totally buggered.  So I called Microsoft, whose ‘tech specialist Kashia’ parroted various content from their rubbish online support articles at me for the following 30 minutes.  “I’ve tried all that,” I kept saying weakly, because you do, don’t you?  You try everything before you actually have to speak to someone.

Eventually I was told to contact Dropbox.  I spent the next frazzled 40 minutes on an online chat with ‘Jack’, who again kept suggesting things I’d already tried, though he was a lot more polite about it.  He said he’d “escalate the issue” and I sighed, then went off for a much-needed walk.

When I got back, I had another look around and I saw what the problem was: all four files had been deleted by accident (I could have sworn I didn’t delete them but I must have done!) and were sitting pretty in Dropbox’s ‘Deleted’ folder.  Only I couldn’t see them in there originally because the wrong date was showing in the folder.

So I changed the date, restored the files, and wondered why in all the time I’d been speaking to both Microsoft and Dropbox, no-one had asked me to do that.  I mentioned this on the inevitable ‘How did we do?’ emails I got from both of them afterwards, but somehow I don’t think they’ll take any notice.  No-one ever does, do they?

(OK, that last one was supremely boring.  I’ll get better at this small talk lark, promise).