Awkward chitchat: Boom go Renee's brains

Response: Haha, that ad was weird, man. I had a sea kitten for dinner last night in Thai sauce and lemme tell you, it was gooood.

Smalltalk 101

One of the things I despise more than life itself is an awkward conversation. I'm not generally a shy person; I'll put myself out there pretty readily and let the conversation get awesome, but when you're with someone boring or prudish or boring it just gets so challenging to be normal and not bust out the awkward laughter.

Awkward smalltalk is my first pet peeve; Gab's was the PETA. We should log these somewhere so we don't forget, or maybe just dedicate the whole blog to what we hate. Next post: turtlenecks.

I looked up how to make comfortable smalltalk with someone you don't know. Here is my favourite step.

STEP 3: Play detective.Let's say you opened with "How are you doing with all this rain?" To move from this surface chitchat to a deeper dialogue, listen for any word in the other person's reply that might suggest a conversational direction, advises Leil Lowndes, author of Goodbye to Shy. A few examples:
HER: "Oh, I don't mind the rain. It's good for the plants."
YOU: "Are you a gardener?"

HER: "If I wanted this much rain, I'd live in Seattle!"
YOU: "Have you been to Seattle?"

HER: "I haven't been able to take the dog on a decent walk in a week."
YOU: "I have a miniature dachshund named Beau. Tell me about your dog."

These sound like very normal, interactive conversations. I will take all the advice into consideration, and combined with the kickass tips I learned from "How to make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less" I will be the hit of all parties from now to eternity.

But what if they don't give you way too much information in their response like these charming people do? What if they just say, "Oh yes, the rain's all I've been thinking of." Am I supposed to say "Oh gee, I noticed you ended your sentence with a preposition. You aren't very good at English; did you complete high school?" I think that that would go over really well.

I'm planning to try out some of my tips on that upcoming event I have that Gab knows I don't want to go to because of the awkwardness and the smalltalkiness. Well now my world has been revolutionized! In I will go, commenting loudly on how I'm craving potatoes, and aren't the potatoes lovely in Iowa, have you been to Iowa?

It won't be awkward at all.

Renee Out.