I’m not good at it.
Most of the time, it’s too early to ask me how I’m doing. The day just started, I have no clue. I’ll probably respond:
“How are you doing?”
I know, brilliant.
No “fine” or “good” or “great” to preface it, just an Uno reverse card.
“And you?” is solemn vow to continue the conversation and add nothing to it. It says I’m listening for as long as you need me to, but I don’t need you to listen to me. I am a mere canvas for you to taint with your thoughts, and right after, I will pour the taint — I mean paint — into the trash.
“And you?” is like doing community service. Some people just want to hear themselves speak, I give them that. Regardless of my response, they go on about their day and psychoanalyze their own: Should I have said this, should I have said that. What if I said, “what’s groovy,” instead of “what’s up, “swell” instead of “delightful.”
It doesn’t matter. My response will be the same. Otherwise, what do you want me to say?
I’m older, wiser, drunker, dumber. I’m on a rotating ball floating in the middle of a dark and vast abyss, surrounded to an equally dark, but wetter, abyss. I can fly… if I spend over a grand. I can fight… but some guy way too old to be running the country will lock me in a metal cage and take away the one thing that we can never buy more of: time.
Maybe this is why I hate small talk. It adds up to a big waste of time.