Small Talk

I find small talk exhausting. I am not talking about shooting the bull with my golf buddies, or being silly around my family. Small talk occurs frequently at “networking” events and business lunches, when people exchange pleasantries, curry favor, or make feeble attempts to nail down deals.

The hollow, shallow rhetoric is meaningless and serves no purpose, except allowing some acquaintances to believe that they now belong to an imaginary club. That’s why, at most of these events, I find my self standing in the corner sipping my wine, and my body language has one message — thanks, but no thanks.

Maybe I am getting older, or my patience is wearing thin, but I am getting more selective about the people I want to be around. I have no patience for superficial chatter. Graying gracefully certainly has its advantages. As Andrew Carnegie eloquently stated:

“The older I get, the less I listen to what people say, and the more I look at what they do.”