Idle chit chat

Do you ever wish you would be great at idle chit chat?  I’m sure you have. 

There’s not a week goes by that I’m not faced by a situation where idle chit chat is required. Idle chit chat is a form of communication between acquaintances, work colleagues you barely know,  people you don’t like,  or in-laws you only see at weddings or funerals.   However, for idle chit chat to be performed, there has to be a specific location where you can’t escape, such as:

  • Lifts – this is the more confronting place to be when you’re stuck in a lift with someone you barely know or like.  Those first couple of seconds, or worse still – minutes, when you’re reaching back into your mind searching for something to say. Your minds goes blank and out of your mouth you inevitably say “can you believe the weather we’re having?”.
  • Shopping isles– you see them approaching, them with their trolley, you with yours, on a direct collision course.  Have they noticed you yet?  Maybe you can pretend to be studying the baked bean jar for fat content and hope they don’t recognise you and pass by. But usually not, you both see each other, swear under your breath and try and figure out what the hell you’re going to say.
  • Churches – as mentioned above, weddings and funerals are another idle chit chat battle field. If your unlucky to be the in-law of the newly married or deceased person,  then you’re in for a long night.  You’ll be depending on idle chit chat to get you though.  However, for these occasions idle chit chat topics are fairly easy as you can rely on the occasion itself to come to your aid. For example, at a wedding you’ve go the opening sentence “nice wedding isn’t it?” or the good old favourite “doesn’t the bride look lovely?”. At funerals you can fall back on the opening line “he/she was a good person” and “they’re going to be missed”.
  • Medical centre – funny I should include this because I just returned from an x-ray,  where stripped down to a paper cape, I was alone in the x-ray room with a strange man who was going to take internal piccies of my stomach.  An intimate moment I don’t get with many people, yet alone strange men. Lucky for me he started the idle chit chat with a story about a faulty watch his brother got him from Thailand.  He make it sound like I was the first one to hear this story today.  I take my had off to an idle chit chat master.

Why do we feel the need for idle chit chat? Can’t we just be honest and ignore those we dont’ really want to talk to! 

No wonder so many of us are in theropy!

Author: Kitty

First and foremost I'm a busy working woman but I'm also a mother, grandmother and mother-in-law. I was brought up in a small country town but I've lived and worked in Sydney for over 20 years. I'm a slack blogger because life and earning a living gets in the way.

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