Jessamyn Fairfield

There's a lot of layers.

But so the thing that's interesting about this is that people, even if they said beforehand, oh, that's a very boring topic.

I'm not going to enjoy talking about it.

Afterward, people's ratings of the conversations were consistently much higher than they predicted.

And I think it's interesting to think about why this is, right?

Thinking about how you're going to feel about the facts of a conversation, like did we discuss the stock market or onions?

Like it's easy to make a sort of prediction of like, well, how much am I interested in that thing?

But, of course, a conversation isn't one person.

It's the connection.

It's like your engagement with the other person.

It's talking.

It's feeling listened to.

It's maybe feeling understood.

It's maybe feeling hungry.

Like just that kind of ineffable thing about conversation.

People like it.

People like talking to each other.

So even if the topic is not important, it's not always about the topic necessarily.

And I think it's very interesting to maybe recalibrate our expectations of what small talk is or does.

I mean, as you said, like it can lead to a lot more, but even small talk by itself, it's connecting with another human being.