Ep. 71 - Why Introverts Hate Small Talk
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
163.99048
Summary
In this episode, Matt talks about what it means to be an introvert and why we hate making small talk in elevators and how to deal with the awkwardness that comes with it. Introverts are a strange group of people, and we often get the wrong idea about what they are like.
Transcript
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So this topic will be maybe a little bit of a change of pace.
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A couple of days ago, at the end of the show, I mentioned a horrific encounter that I had
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in an elevator, and it was a horrific encounter because someone spoke to me.
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Someone made small talk, and that's a horrifying thing.
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There's nothing worse than small talk in an elevator, because it's this enclosed,
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Sometimes you can't escape for up to 20 to 30 seconds, and that is 20 or 30 seconds of torture.
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Now, I said that when I am dictator of America, I will impose a new regulation forbidding any
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conversation of any kind in an elevator upon penalty of death, and also requiring that
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elevator music must be played in elevators so as to alleviate the awkwardness of the sounds.
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Now, some people emailed me after that discussion, and they were very confused, and they said,
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you know, what's the matter with small talk, Matt?
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It seems like a pretty rude thing for you to not want to make conversation with a person.
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It's pretty rude that you don't want to talk to somebody on an elevator, so on and so forth.
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Now, what you find in these responses is something that people in my community, that my people,
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okay, that would be introverts, deal with every day.
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Even though I assume half the country is probably comprised of introverts, or at least a very large
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percentage, even so, we happen to live, we live in a culture and a society that is designed for and
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by extroverts, and so they get to define everything, and they get to define us, and their definitions
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So, what I want to do, for a little bit of a respite from the heavier topics, is talk
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about this strange sort of person called an introvert, and how they operate, you know,
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what it means to be introverted, and why we hate small talk, because I think this could
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Half of you watching this will think, well, this is a stupid, useless topic, but the other
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half will think, yes, thank you, finally someone is explaining this.
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So, the first thing is this, on a personal level, yes, personally, I am an introvert through
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and through, yet, I give my opinions publicly for a living, I travel around the country,
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I give speeches in front of crowds, and I don't dread, I don't dread public speaking at all.
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It is my favorite thing that I do professionally, without question.
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In spite of the fact that I would certainly qualify as an introvert.
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Now, this is only surprising to people who don't understand introversion and confuse it
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I have no shyness to speak of, which is why I can get up in front of 500 people and talk
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to them, and not only have no problem with it, but enjoy it.
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So, there's no shyness, yet there is introversion.
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In fact, if we're standing in front, if we were standing in a crowd of 500 people, and
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you said, Matt, I need you to go and mingle and make a small, make small talk with like
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five or six of those people, that's what I need you to do.
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But if you told me, Matt, I need you to get up in front of all of these people on a stage
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and talk to them for an hour, I would say, great, I'd be super excited to do it.
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It reminds me of something that, it reminds me of something that Jerry Seinfeld once said
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when he was, while he was on stage doing standup, he said, I can talk to all of you, but I can't
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And that's kind of what it's like to be a non-shy introvert.
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Although there are shy introverts, and there are, just like there are shy extroverts, as
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So being an introvert, and if you think about the term introvert, it kind of makes sense.
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Being an introvert means that you draw energy from quiet, from solitude, from being alone
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That doesn't mean that you hate interacting with people, or that you never want to, or that
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you want to be a hermit out in the woods, although there's a certain part of me that would find
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But it doesn't mean that everyone wants, that all introverts would like to be hermits.
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It just means that you have a very limited supply of, of interacting energy.
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There's a, there's, there's, you have a finite supply of that kind of energy for the day.
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You'd rather use it on, for instance, one three hour in-depth conversation with a friend,
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or maybe giving a speech in front of a crowd or something like that.
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You'd rather use it that way than on 95 different small talk exchanges with strangers on elevators
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Now, on the other hand, an extrovert draws energy from interacting with people.
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An extrovert feels most at home, um, talking to people.
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He feels most energized, mingling and chatting and interacting and so on.
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My wife is, uh, is the prototype of an extrovert.
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She'll go to the grocery store and she'll come back and tell me, oh, you know, I met,
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You were gone for 32 minutes and you made a friend in that time.
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That would never happen to me ever, but, um, but it happens to her all the time.
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I, I, I feel that I understand them, but I don't think that the extroverted approach
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Even though if our, even though our society is kind of set up demanding that of all of
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us, I don't think it really is the only acceptable approach.
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And the idea that it's rude or bad or wrong to not be completely sociable all the time
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The idea that you're required to talk all the time to everybody, everywhere you are.
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There are introverts are just different sorts of people.
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And, um, and to us, to me, speaking as an introvert, now you might think it's weird that,
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I hear people that say, oh, you know, that, that, um, to, to them, the worst thing in the
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world would be to go to a restaurant and eat by themselves at a table.
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Like they think that's the weirdest, most uncomfortable thing.
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I'll get a, I'll, you know, it's not even like I'll go to the bar.
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If I'm traveling at a, at a sit down restaurant and eat, it doesn't bother me at all.
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It gives me time to just eat and drink and think, but there are people who can't stand
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the idea that they, they would find that horrific to just be by themselves eating somewhere.
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Everyone has different personalities and different approaches.
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The question is, why don't I, why don't introverts in general, if I may speak for all introverts,
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why don't we enjoy small talk on elevators and elsewhere in life?
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I'm going to explain why small talk is the bane of an introvert's existence.
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Number one, most importantly, and this, this is really the main thing.
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And as introverts, we absolutely loathe insincere conversation.
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We don't like to talk to someone who we know isn't really interested in the discussion.
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And if this, if the discussion is about the weather or about traffic or some other banal
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thing, then we know that you, the other person in the conversation, that you are about as
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interested in what we are saying as we are in what you're, what you are saying, which is
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So to us, this feels like a wasted interaction.
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Our finite amount of people energy is being depleted by this completely useless exchange that is of no
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Now, here's the thing, despite popular belief, it's not that we hate talking about, we enjoy
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So we want to get to know in a conversation for us, like we want to get to know the other
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We want to hear their thoughts and their perspectives.
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But if they are not invested in the discussion and they don't care what we're saying, and we
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don't really care what they're saying because it's just, it's, it's a, it's a, you know,
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Then we kind of shut down and we say, well, there's just no point in this conversation.
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The same thing can happen even in an, even in a non-small talk discussion.
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If we, if we think we're having a meaningful discussion, but then we look like we're talking
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to you and we think it's a meaningful conversation.
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And then we look at you and we see that just dead eye expression, that kind of, I don't care
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at all about what you're saying expression, or we get that, or we start to get the, the
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feeling it's one of those, we get, we, we, we started to get the feeling that, that really
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this is one of those conversations where you're just waiting for your turn to talk and it
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doesn't really matter to you what we're saying.
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The moment we start to sense that, then we just shut down.
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We don't want to have the conversation anymore because it's not that we're offended or our
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feelings are, but it's just to us, it's pointless.
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Like, okay, well, you know, no, no hurt feelings, nothing personal, but let's stop, let's stop
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Now you might say, well, you need small talk in order to transition into the deeper subjects.
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Well, this is, this is a necessary transitional thing to get into deeper.
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You need the small talk portion of it, but no, see, that's not how we work.
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That's how you work as an extrovert, maybe, but we don't.
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We would have no problem whatsoever just jumping right into the deeper topic.
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We would jump right into politics or religion or whatever without the transition.
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The transition from our perspective, the small talk part of it, that impedes conversation
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and gets in the way of and puts off and interferes with the more meaningful interaction.
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And if we're in an environment where no meaningful conversation could possibly occur because there's
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just no time for it, or it's not the place for it, like an elevator, then we just as soon
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stay silent because there's nothing can really come of the discussion anyway.
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Second thing, we are up in our heads all the time, constantly.
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And we like that, you know, we like to be there thinking and imagining and wondering, whatever.
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It's not like we're always thinking about ourselves.
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We could be thinking about the news or about a family member or about God or about walruses.
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But if you rip us out of that, then we'd prefer it if you have a good reason.
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The moment you start talking to us, you have ripped us out of our thought process.
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And I don't think it's unreasonable that we would prefer, if you're going to do that,
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And so if you have to relay important information to us, that's a reason.
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If you want to have a real meaningful conversation, that's a reason.
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But if the reason is just to make an observation about the weather,
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if the reason is just to say, oh, it's raining outside,
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well, then maybe we're a little put off by that.
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So for us, it could be friendly to not say anything to a person
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and just let them continue along with whatever thought process they're following at the moment.
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For you, you're being friendly by talking about the weather.
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But for us, we're being friendly by not talking about it or not talking to you at all
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I've already explained that we're up in our heads all the time.
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And that means that we're very analytical about things.
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So we will leave every small talk conversation analyzing and assessing our own performance in the exchange.
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While the extrovert may leave the exchange and just go about his day and not think about it anymore,
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for us, we're left thinking about it, inspecting ourselves, giving ourselves a grade on the whole thing.
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Although sometimes we'll walk away saying, oh, you know, wow, well done, mate.
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And then we have to go take a nap because we're so drained and exhausted by it.
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We prefer to avoid what to us is kind of a high-pressure situation that will lead to a very tough self-analysis.
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So while silence may be painful to you as an extrovert, it's not to us.
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And personally, I don't think that one is wrong and the other is right.
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It's just, it's just, these are just personality types.
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Now, of course, this doesn't mean that we can avoid small talk all the time.
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It's a necessary evil, especially in our society.
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It's a necessary evil if you're like on the dating scene and in many other situations.
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It takes effort and it's exhausting and we don't like it.
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So kind of, if you're an extrovert, imagine how you would feel as an extrovert if you were forced to sit alone and eat by yourself at a restaurant.
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Or if you had to sit in a quiet room alone for an hour and talk to nobody, nobody around, and nothing to do.
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Or imagine how you would feel even if you had to read a book by yourself all afternoon or something like that.
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Imagine the discomfort and the exhaustion and the wanting desperately to get out and to get into your natural environment.
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Well, and that's how we feel during small time.
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Hopefully, that will help you to understand a little bit the, you know, 50% of the people that you share a society with.