I notice when N types talk about their day, its summarized in less than a minute. In fairness to ISxP types, they're not as prone to such monologues of their daily activities. ISxJs do seem to like to recount what has recently occurred. There is purpose to this, just as there is some value in N speculation & conceptual talk, but a preference for a process can make a person lean a certain way in conversation.
It depends what is the "deep" or "small" talk about. I can deal with either/or.
Example:
Asking very personal information about me right off the bat? To hell with that. This will only come if I trust you.
Talking about an experiment? Sure, lend me a bit of the information you've learned.
Talking about the weather.... ehhhh. Boring, but ok. Talking about specific weather patterns that is currently happening? Sure! (such as El Nino/La Nina and the North Atlantic Oscillation)
Talking about your day. As long as I know you, sure, just don't get into every-single-living-detail-you-can-remember ("this thing was this color".)
Talking about the latest happening, as long as it isn't about something like a celebrity breaking up with some other celebrity? Sure. Talk about new video games, technology, etc? Ok.
-What's the weather?
-How's your son?
-Did Katie get into that school?
-Crappy roads out huh?
-How are you? (not expecting a deep response)
I mean yea, small detail-ish stuff.... S types.
I can do small talk now though, I'm a lot better at it. And I add in palatable "large talk" and jokes. Jokes are like small talk.
Since I hardly ever have an interesting answer to the question "how was your day/what's new?" I learned to answer "Fine, I just learned that >insert fun fact<" and hope that this will help to get a good conversation started. That doesn't automatically lead to a great conversation, of course, but most people react positively and the least you usually get is a smile and a look of suprise.
I hate celebrity talk.
My bum is sore from this chair.
I guess I'm the exception here, because I hate that 'how was your day' question, and unless there was something crazy or exceptional about it, I give the same answer- not much. If someone asks me (let's say we haven't talked in a while) what's been up? Again, if there's nothing of interest to note, than I have nothing to say, unless I know there's something major going on in their lives - like a recent family event/tragedy in this case.
If someone was to come up to me and start talking about some theory, depending on how well I knew them, I'd give them the range of WTF look to sincere interest (If whatever they're talking about is interesting).
In my experience ISTJs can be a lot less talkative. If my grandfather was in the mood to talk, it was an event. I also know another ISJ who says he doesn't like to talk about himself.
Describing your trip to the dentist - not important. Telling me that the grocery store got a new style of paper bags - not that important. Your favorite TV show changed from 7pm to 8pm - ehh, not that important (deal with it!). Your gas bill is $3 more than last month - ehh, whatever.
Are you kidding me? These are all very interesting conversations. (or at least lead to very interesting conversations)
Him-"I went to the dentist"
Me- "I don't go to the dentist, I just keep my mouth clean. Humans have survived years without dentists... Honestly, I'm not sure why we are so hung up on oral hygiene."
Him- "They have a new paper bag in the stores these days"
Me- "Really, what type?"
Him- "Blah"
Me-" Oh, the green movement... I can see why it's important. But honestly, if these new bags aren't as good as the old ones, I'm not sure I like the situation. Does that make me selfish?"
Him- "My show got moved"
Me- "Which one?"
Him-"Blah"
Me- at this point there are so many places to take the conversation I wouldn't even know how to proceed. I could ask him why programs are moved (I have some idea, but I'm not sure exactly). I could ask him why he likes the show. I could ask him if he has TiVo. (I don't) I could ask him why he likes it, if it's changed his TV watching habits. I could ask him if he skips the commercials. (Is that even possible?) etc etc
Him-"My gas bill went up by 3 dollars?"
Me- "Why?"
Him-"Well, oil has gotten more expensive.."
Me-again possibilities here are endless..the middle east, china (which is something you would like to talk about), capitalism..
Even the "plane is white" is interesting. Why is this..to reflect the sun, to reduce energy costs? That makes no sense, don't they heat the airplane? They should be absorbing the heat..right? Does heat get reflect by white, or is that just light?
All these are conversations I would gladly have. It's just about steering the conversation to something you like talking about, or listening to. Admittedly, some people don't respond well to all my questions (in which case they leave me alone) but most people like talking about themselves, or giving their opinion on something. And I like hearing those opinions and trying to figure that person out. I've never met someone who doesn't surprise me in some way..( I once met this girl who was into Keltic music. Apparently there are international Keltic music competitions and the city I live in has one of the best Keltic music groups in the world. A city four hours away has a better one.. So, they "fight" over local Keltic talent. This leads to a sometimes not so friendly rivalry...yes, over Keltic music. Seriously, how can you make that up? It's interesting and extremely unexpected, something I would never have know even existed if not for talking to the person.)
But maybe I just excited over boring things..
Those are the surface questions anybody asks- and you're right, you probably don't care too much, but if it means something to them, you'll ask out of consideration. That's not S stuff.
It may be an I/E thing as well.
Agreed. I'm not much for small talk, but sometimes one feels the need to initiate a conversation, so things like, "Hi, how are you?" Or, "Man, some weather we're having..." Or say waiting in line for something, leaning over and saying, "Geez, could this go any slower!" or even a compliment of some sort, is a good way to just break ice. And sometimes it leads no where... and then other times, you can get into some really interesting conversations with random strangers. Conversations one might not expect to have.Seriously you're going to get that deep? Doesn't that have it's place with someone you know better? Let's say you're in a waiting room- you'd go that far?
Don't you think you can take the conversation the way you want with your response to 'what did you do today?'
Yeah... but even starting with what music and film are you into, feels sort of like being on some matchmaker tv show. That's not a good way to initiate a conversation. Not unless, say you are in a waiting room and there's some movie on, and you happen to make light chit chat about the movie and then it gets carried into a topic about movies and what you do or don't like.Unfortunately it escapes me sometimes. I just look at people with a puzzled expression not sure what to ask, can't over do it and yet if I don't say anything it gets awkward. I suppose I can start with what music and film are you into, that at least is less confronting. hahah when I asked the goals bit even with friends in my social circle they were at a loss to say and reversed the question onto me and I was happy to answer but they still didn't. pfft.
Agreed!I guess people have their guard up, more or less, until you're worthy of knowing more information, or you'll be receptive to more questions.
I wouldn't say that conversations flow necessarily the way you think. I don't state something in hopes of being prompted with the proper question, so that I may continue talking about what I hope to talk about. If someone says something that prompts another question or intrigue, then go with it if it interests you. But conversations aren't set up that way. At least not for me. I just talk without thinking much of the time in those types of situations and I think many people are the same.I have trouble talking in situation conversations, they say you can generally tell what to ask from what people say as a carry on of the conversation. Well the obvious escapes me and I don't want to ask from the conversation to carry the conversation. I want to ask what I'm interested in knowing about them rather than the situational stuff.
That's such a ridiculous stereotype. I can make small talk with random strangers, only because I know I'll be moving along within minutes. I couldn't possibly sit and make small talk for endless time. Honestly, this is one of the reasons I am more of an introvert I think. It's hard to find people that I can really connect with on a deeper level. I love really getting to know people, and not talking or goofing off forever on a trivial plane. I've had people tell me I'm one of the most "real" people they know, because of this quality of forgetting the bull and wanting to understand. Going out to parties or big group events, often make for trivial conversations, in my opinion, which is one of the reasons I either try to avoid it or leave early because I'm incredibly drained or bored. But it's not always the case. Sometimes starting off with small talk can lead to some awesome big talk. And this keeps me interested and energized.The majority of people make small talk to a degree - though I find INTs claim to despise it the most - but I think the stereotype is that Ss are more satisfied spending large chunks of their time this way, where as Ns either want to move on to another topic or get the hell away from the person who keeps making chit chat.
+1I think that all of this self-glorifying "I hate small talk" business is silly and missing the point. If you claim to hate small talk it's either because (1) you dislike (or don't want to be bothered with) communicating with others in general, (2) you are socially dysfunctional and want to blame it on other's lack of ability to converse about "deeper" things, or (3) because you're lying to make yourself seem N to idiots on this forum. Of these three possibilities, I think that only (1) can have any sort of correlation to personality type. And it would be on the E/I or, to a lesser extent, T/F axis rather than S/N.
Small talk is a social ritual that functions as a method of negotiating relationships between people in communication. Among other things, it allows, for instance, one to gauge the mood and willingness of their interlocutor in order to determine the limits of possible conversation. In other words, the point of small talk is not to exchange content through communication, but rather to understand how to communicate in any particular instance (with any particular person.) Function over content. To say that small talk is pointless because you talk about mundane things is, therefore, nothing other than a triviality.
Personally, I do generally dislike engaging in small talk. But the reason that I do is because I dislike communicating in general with people to whom I am not well acquainted (i.e., people who I would have to engage in small talk with in order to communicate, because I don't know them well and therefore don't know how to communicate with them), not because the topics are boring. To say the latter would be akin to saying that I dislike candy wrappers because they don't taste as good the candy bar. Which is stupid.
Furthermore, to say that you are bad at small talk is the same as saying that you are bad at being social.