Beginning a conversation with small talk.

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I'm sure this has been covered myriad times, but:

Do you despise small talk?

I've been frequenting Omegle to whittle away the time and because face-to-face conversation is daunting, and have noticed this: starting a conversation with 'How are you?' or 'What's up' bugs me to no end. Same goes for regular conversation, when it happens.

How am I meant to respond to this? I don't see how I could possibly summarise my current state of being without being verbose, nor do I see how I can list all the things that are 'up' at the present moment.

For me, if a conversation begins with this, it is doomed. It inevitably leads to a 'Where are you from?', then to 'What's the weather like?', then to awkward silence. I'd rather they start with a blunt and intriguing conversation-starter.

What are your thoughts and experiences?

I completely agree with you, but with one small exception... I love 'how are you?'.

Except I often ask "in exact words, how are you?" because I hate the meaningless "fine, you?" "fine" *awkward silence*

You ever play '20 Questions"? You have 20 chances to identify a thing the person thought of with questions. The traditional first question is "Animal, vegetable, or mineral?" That way, starting with just about everything in the universe, you narrow it down considerably. Small talk is like that, in that you start with very general questions like "What do you do?" or "How long have you lived in town?" and then make your way to the more interesting topics. When you don't know a person well, this is a useful way of having a conversation topic both people can agree on, rather than something only one person wants to talk about.

I'll have to try the 20 questions approach. That would be a good idea.

What's up?

The sky.

I hate these meaningless questions too, I like to give to give smart ass answers instead of the standard answers.
It wil make them laugh or think.

Learn the script.
The answer to "How are you?" is "Fine", "Good, thank you" or something along those lines.
The answer to "What's up?" is "Not much" or variants of that.

Most people who ask those questions don't want to know how you are or what's going on in your life; the questions are just to acknowledge you and be friendly.

I do often get asked whether I'm trying to play this 20-questions game...and I thought I'd hit on a foolproof method!
Like:
What's your favourite band?
-Umm...Lady Gaga?
Oh right. Um. Favourite book?
-Don't really read...
Well, do you like school?
-What is this an interrogation?!

Often I just can't be bothered to be creative. If I am, I get "you're so random" and laughs, but it's better than nothing.
I wish I could find someone who would ELABORATE...because I think I really could hold a conversation if the other person was very talkative and gave lots of possible tangent points!

Yes, that is what I do. It makes people laugh, and laughing puts them in a good mood.

Here in Finland they ask "Mitä kuuluu?" That means something like "What is heard?" And I usually reply: "Everything that is said loud enough."

The purpose of small talk is to signal to someone, whose private space you are intruding, that your intentions are not hostile. Making them laugh serves for the same purpose.

it took me ages to master this! Basically as Who_Am_I said, learn the script.

If it's someone new, I generally say

"Hey how are you?
-good thanks, yourself?
"good thanks! so do you study? or work? what do you do?"
-rambles about their work
"*find something about that that you can talk about for a bit or ask questions about more details about what they do*"
-answers your questions/etc
"*if they don't ask you what you do, just say "well I do ____" and hopefully they'll ask you questions on it"

It takes a lot of practise. I didn't get this right until I graduated high school and I only got it that quickly because I was so obsessed with learning it. If you ever see other people do it, just watch them and take mental notes of what they say, how they link sentences and topics together.

My problem with small talk is that I dont understand the purpose behind it, so if someone could explain the purpose behind it that would be great because when I run into something that I do not understand I do not do it. I know that seems lazy but to me and my mind everything either has to be logical or have a purpose behind it that I am able to understand and am willing to accept.

Also another problem with small talk that I have is that I find it to be useless space filler and I am definitely not one to waste time just filling the air to hear myself talk. I know that you could argue that I do that with computers but I talk about computers a lot of the time to show that I am smart and capable of giving out information to others, so they know that I know something and that I am not dumb just because I do not like small talk.

Finally when it comes to small talk that I engage in which is rare I usually only give one word answers. These one word answers irritate people in general and I do not tend to deal with irritation that well. Is there any suggestions that you could give me besides the obvious of engage in small talk because even though I am working on developing that skill it is coming slowly because developing a skill for me requires understanding of the skill and a willingness to use the skill.

Many habits have been formed because people have been so violent towards each other. Shaking hands, for example, has the purpose of showing that you are not holding a weapon in your hand. Small talk has the purpose of showing to the other person, that your intentions are good.

To understand the purpose of it, you have to look at it from an NT's point of view. I believe they tend to enjoy it if the conversation goes well, so it is like any activity that we can enjoy, it doesn't necessarily need to have a purpose in a practical aspect. Another thing it does is "break the ice" between people. If they feel they can talk to each other well in small talk, then it will eventually evolve into something more in depth and their relationship grows. NT's are very social creatures and their actions are for the pursuit of social interaction and relationships.



I use to talk to computers too



One thing I can advise is to try to not let what other people do/say/feel affect you. If they feel irritated that's really their problem and not yours. Do your best, keep learning, and if they don't like what you have to offer at the time you try then too bad for them.

This. I loathe small talk, but the reason I do it is that once I get past it, we can talk about stuff that is actually interesting. That may not happen until I get to know the person a little better, but I just suck it up until that time comes.

This is very true. The motivating factor for me to do it is due to a warm and friendly response from NTs when I do so. Even if it isn't rewarding to you at the immediate moment, the rewards come later on when it will expand into good interactions between you and the other person.