How do you stretch your social muscles again? Start small. - Letters From Esther

so i'm sitting in this restaurant with my friend john and um i asked the waiter if he could bring some mustard and then a few minutes later the waiter comes back and he gives us a basket of bread and he gives the neighbors the mustard and then as i'm going for the mustard i realize this is not it so i look on the side and i notice that they have my mustard and they're just about to ask the waiter for their bread and i say i have your bread and we start this whole conversation so do you like it spicy do you not like it spicy that bread bread is very good here it's actually very crispy you should order something right would you like to taste it well do you want to taste it and we just enter into this wonderful little small talk and then when they leave they tell us you know here please have the last piece of bread we didn't touch it you will enjoy it you know and i'm thinking wow it's been so long that i didn't turn my head down when i was looking and walking past a stranger that i actually even sought to communicate with them and then a few days later i'm going with my friend ida to little park this new public park in uh in new york city and if we realize at the entrance that it's completely sold out and that it's a two-week wait etc and i just say to the person at the at a ticket office i say well and what happens if there are no shows and she says well you know sometimes people have an extra ticket and i suddenly stand there and i go anybody extra ticket anybody extra ticket like i used to do you know when i would just stand there and try to get into any show any performance any play and then we get one and then my friend goes anybody an extra ticket for my girlfriend and then we get a ticket from these people they have an extra one we start walking along with them you know when did you reserve how long did it take where are you from what did it take to come here and we just have this three four minute back and forth beautiful banter and i'm just oh my whole chest is opening up talking to these people and then my friend john who i was at the restaurant tells me that during this past year he actually joined a co-op nearby so that he would be able to talk to strangers by you know administering the masks you know delivering the food just to stay in touch with people he volunteered twice a week at the food co-op so this is to say that today's workshop is all about small talk and especially about how small talk is a bridge to others but first hello everyone and thank you for joining me for letters from esther live my monthly workshop series that helps you reflect act and develop greater confidence and relational intelligence in all of your relationships the series happens monthly on youtube and on facebook and for more letters from estere visit esterparel.com blog i invite you to join me every month here on youtube or on facebook and discuss the newsletter live so you get to read it then we get to talk about it but before we start a few things a consider inviting somebody to reach to join us here reach out to someone and uh just let them come right away if you think that this is a subject that matters how to connect how to reconnect how to engage with people how to master a little bit more that art of small talk and of course as always i encourage you to take notes either pen and paper on a sheet of paper either a notebook but write down what you think about what comes up for you you'll have loads of fantastic conversations that you can have with people afterwards and if you like what you learned today like and subscribe to my youtube channel if you haven't done so yet just go ahead you can find the buttons for that below this video this month well i've been focusing on small talk small talk has been my theme on the blog across all my channels on social media on the newsletter and here with you today but as always when i use a term i like to define it first and kind of my definition or the definition that i have accumulated through conversations and through reading and research what is small talk what qualifies a small talk here are a few can be a quick conversation with a stranger low stakes somebody that is standing in line like this morning when i went to get fresh bread and i was at his new bakery and i just asked the person in front of me what do you get have you gotten this before do you have a recommendation here you know the way we gather information in a type of urban anthropology talking to the cab driver you know i have learned so much about geopolitics from riding cabs in new york city but this is true worldwide i would say that you the the the amount of people they come in touch with you know way more than i will ever meet in my office and that is tremendous knowledge and tremendous source of information and then there is just catching up on what are the new bars you know when i meet a co-worker on monday morning i especially like to ask something about the weekend where did you go what did you do who did you see i always get ideas you know asking a manager for help with a project or even spotting a lovely person across the room and then approaching them for the very first time small talk doesn't need talk a gaze a smile a wink all of that is part of how we establish those initial connections it's spontaneous small talk is unprompted it's improvisational curiosity and it often can establish an instant communality smalter can also be the first step to building a deep meaningful connection to another i happen to like small talk and i know not everybody does but it has really led to some of my closest friendship talking on an airplane with someone who was reading one french newspaper when i was reading the other and it became a conversation about reading lamont versus reading liberacion and here we are 26 years later really still friends or sitting in a cafe and people hear my accent but i hear theirs too and we start a conversation and when did you come and how did you arrive here and what brought you and where do you live and which neighborhood and you know the commonality of being a newcomer even if it's a newcomer of decades but somebody who once arrived like that from afar you know and uh i mean small talk it used to be a major part of our life before the pandemic and i know that while many of us are getting back into the world at this moment we are experiencing a kind of social atrophy we need to re-strengthen our social muscles and um that doesn't just come from nowhere it happens in small increments in conversations personally i don't think i've been so aware of those tiny calculations those droplets of social interactions with people that i don't know like i don't think i would have noticed that scene in the restaurant between the mustard and the bread just sorry i would have just kind of done it probably but not paid attention to how unusual it was to how long it had been since i had done that same thing with the with the tickets at uh at a little uh park there and um you know i think that small talk at this point is not even just reserved for new people it can even be people that i know but despite the occasional awkward silence of fumbling words i have had many beautiful interactions with strangers recently that have shown me how important small talk is and i would say small talk suffers from a definitional disadvantage it is a term that elicits a lot of negative reactions in sometimes in us that it's superficial that it's talking to say nothing that it doesn't lead to anything and i want to invite us to think a little bit differently you know i mean we asked you on instagram what has been your best interaction with a stranger recently and i have to tell you you shared such beautiful stories so i selected just a few to give you a sense because when people experience it and it's a good experience they get it and you got it you know so when my dog of 15 years passed away and i was devastated and crying so much at the veterinary clinic and a total stranger came up to me and cuddled me and held me whilst i cried it was everything i needed at that time and i'm so grateful for her that in that moment she was there for me and i never even got to ask her name the grocer who told me that it was a fine day to be alive and i agreed he winked at me and told me to remember it and i needed that reminder today as always and someone stopped me on a hike this morning while i was in a conversation with a friend about being trust with ourselves to tell me that they'd been eavesdropping and that everything i was sharing resonated with them deeply and that they felt like it it i felt like it was a message and they felt like it was a message that they needed to hear for themselves as well i mean all these situations a complete stranger that complimented my yellow top and told me how vibrant it looked and it put a spring in my step that day or allowing a mom to hold my hand at the end of a shaky plane ride or twice a week i was approached this week by a stranger who just wanted to tell me how much they loved the novel that i was reading oh that's a classic situation and you know when you read in the phone nobody really knows what you're reading whereas a book used to be such the cover of a book used to be such an opener of conversations taking pictures for a couple that just got engaged on the little bridge on a hike today when it was my own eighth wedding anniversary or a friendly and amusing exchange with the wrong number that called me remember before we had caller id and we knew everything in advance when we could still be surprised started a new job i love this one shared that i was nervous on my first day new colleagues said with a welcoming smile and gesture hey well you're here and you got this and by the way today is my seventh day so we're in this together beautiful one or playing cards with the man at my grandmother's aged care home it's also really beautiful a dog came up to me and let me pet it for a good five minutes so i would love to hear from you as you hear this conversation what are some of the most unusual beautiful moving experiences encounters with strangers that you have had recently just pop them in the chat box let me see what comes up for you you know and i will i will definitely share them with all of us some of us love small talk and some of us cringe at the idea of it but here are some things that i personally love about small talk so i was trying to really think for myself what is it for me why do i enjoy this a lot of the things that were just told about how a beautiful comment can just put a smile on your face and put a spring in your in your step or the book cover i've experienced those as well i think many of us may have but what i would say as well is that time and again small talk has expanded my perspective i actually learned a lot that was unprompted that i didn't see coming often it is when it's positive small talk it is a smile on my face you know small talk has sometimes been one of the best referral service be it an acupuncturist or a pediatrician or a dentist or a masseuse i mean it's like it's a sharing of a rolodex um you know small talk is sometimes about illness and the beginning of it is you know i have had this tool you've had and suddenly you get a whole you know recommendation for where to go and who can be helpful just from you know i have a band-aid here and you have a band-aid here kind of thing you know small talk has been the beginning of life-long friendships for me but more importantly maybe even is small talk has often flipped my biases i have a first impression i look at someone i think certain things and then when they start to talk i was completely wrong wrong on where they're from wrong on what they do wrong and what interests them wrong and often biased wrong so i'm going to own this you know small talk is platonic flirting with an unknown with the unexpected with happenstance with improvisation it's that mystery that thing that's right around the corner and for that small talk becomes an element of eroticism that elixir of aliveness and spontaneity that makes life so rich a great conversation with an outsider is confirmation that you never know what positive experiences life will put in front of you that's just a few of the things that i was thinking about you and the other person we could have passed you know just straight by each other but we chose to engage and sometimes it's not as engaging sometimes it's the puppies sometimes it's the children but by engaging life has suddenly gone down a different path and now i like surprise those surprises not everybody does and i understand that too you know i like that my original judgments are sometimes proven wrong i i i like to stand corrected kind of thing like i thought i knew but i don't know so much as i think i do you know i thought i was going to go to the same restaurant again and then somebody just threw something in front of me and i thought no let me change some of us prefer more reliability more consistency so i am not going to say this is for everyone but we all need a little bit of both we need the surprise and we need the familiar so for those of you who are coming more from the resistance side see if anything here actually could be attractive to you you know and what i would say is it's sweet it's touching it's inconsequential it's low stakes there's nothing really bad that can happen from it at best it's boring and it's tedious but that's it you know so there are many reasons why starting a conversation with somebody outside one circle can be intimidating or unnecessary or annoying or just kind of deplete your mood you know so i i want to address that too you know you can be more reserved more shy you can be you know someone who doesn't always think that you know what to say or you prefer to be a listener and a participant or you're afraid of the rejection and the lack of response on the other side or you've been out of practice after a year and a half of being isolated um or you feel that you don't have particularly much to add and that actually often the small dog people talk to talk so i want to put that out there because um small talk at the same time as we may not like it it is an unavoidable part of life and when it's done well it is the thing that helps us bring those social muscles back to life and this is a moment where we're going to need that bridge from small talk to deep talk so i say for anyone who's struggling and wondering so where do i start here are a few ideas of where i think you can begin they're right in front of you every situation has a context right so you can draw from that context because it's the thing that you are sharing with the other person in that very moment you're in a museum start talking about the artwork you're at a concert you're standing on the street listening to buskers playing jazz or any music you can talk about the very thing that you're listening to you're at the market you can ask about the produce that is right in front of you to someone who seems to know what they're choosing you know i go to chinatown many times and i always find myself asking someone who seems to know what all these vegetables are that i don't know but would love to try please educate me can you tell me can you share with me and i it's very very rare that people don't want to um to to share to open you know to to partake in this kind of situation um during a cafe you know there's a menu it's always easy to ask someone what do you like on the menu what do you typically take here you know why ask only the waiter we can ask the other people who are actually you know also guests in the place and if you're shy or nervous or out of practice just say so it's been a while since i was to talk to people i've been by myself for these last few months i think this is a moment where there is a real license but when i say this is a moment i think it often is a moment to just say it's been a while for me i've been busy with things or i've been away or i've been immersed in something and um i'm out of practice people have no problem saying they're out of practice when they haven't been at the gym for a while so what's the difference right you know you're not the only person sometimes who doesn't know how to approach people if people don't talk it's not because they don't like you or don't want to say anything it's sometimes because they actually are more similar to you you know flowing conversations doesn't come naturally for many people and that's just an important thing to normalize and to realize you know and especially because i think a lot of us are spending so much time in the phone you know i mean you used to be able to come out a while back and somebody was smoking a cigarette and you could talk about the cigarette or ask for a cigarette or often a offer a light i had a friend who always had a lighter with with her she never actually um smoked but she had a lighter because she thought offering light was a wonderful way to start a conversation so the phone is a real conversation stopper actually i mean even people have in conversations in the phone but it's like the eyes are down so you can't catch the glimpse that says oh possible opening right here so number one is look for what is right in front of you shared context number two normalize if you're out of practice if you're shy if you're more reserved normalize it number three look for commonalities focus on questions that look for something that you may have in common with the other person a place an activity an interest look for commonalities you know i was at this birthday last week and um actually wrote about it on on social as well because it was very interesting my friend thanked us all you know lift the glass and talked about how important we were to her but we the guests we were a small group but we did not know each other many of us were close friends to her but we were all from different parts of her life and so we did not know each other the only thing we had in common was her and so i suggested i said you know we've been told that we matter and we are important that we are here for her why don't we turn this around for a moment and we talk about what she means to us what it makes us feel like to be important in her life we flipped the table and we got to listen to the whole group talking about their relationship with her and that was the common thread between all of us and it was really beautiful because she sat in a pool of love that basically described it as the eulogy you get when you're still alive and you can actually hear it and enjoy it and receive it number four if you've looked at the communalities the flip side of that which is equally valid is embrace differences if you think that you and the person with whom you're speaking live in very different worlds use it as an opportunity to expand your point of view to be curious to find out about them just the basic questions of anything that can give you a glimpse into the world that they live in you know it's not about do you agree or don't you disagree about their beliefs their values their ideologies it's just what is the world that they live in how does that world look like how does that world act think like celebrate grieve all of it you know and understanding where someone is coming from that's exactly the point so these are some of the tips for my next blog and i'm publishing it next week so you make sure that you look for the link for the next blog at a stairparel official on instagram and at the stair parallel on facebook and if you need some motivation just think about what great openings small talk can lead to so let me first look for a moment at what are some of the things that you wrote you know i love that non-verbal small talk when i'm stepping aside on the pavement and the other person steps the same way and the dance begins and then we laugh and there's a connection yes yes yes yes um um [Music] i have mermaid colored hair and people often stop me and tell me that they love my hair and smile it's so heartwarming yeah i have a friend who has purple hair i mean it is the perfect opening first for uh for small talk had a biking accident and strangers on the street stopped took care of me called the paramedics gave me water stored the bike a circle of kindness all strangers who befriended while i was stick taking out the trash a neighbor i had a trash taking is a very good one you know taking the trash taking the walk the dog on a walk all of those you know taking out a neighbor that i don't really know said hello and she started to cry and i offered her a hug her mother had passed away and she was feeling alone i shared the secret of my son's paper airplane design with a complete stranger now we are friends and already met for drinks i have always seen an elderly couple of neighbors and they are crazy about my dog i love how our conversation passed from a simple hello to a full conversation and to know about their lives the customer in front of me at ikea grabbed my items by mistake at checkout and a hilarious conversation ensued i love that non-verbal small talk yeah that's what i read before when i'm swerving on the sidewalk i mean that's it you you really you you're capturing what i think is the essence of small talk as a bridge to deeper conversations friendships connections lesser loneliness less isolation social nimbleness all of that so the great openings that small town can lead to is really that you can get a new job you can find new relationships you can get a promotion at work you can get great recommendations for places that you've never been to or you can use my motivation my own parents they used to come visit me they were in their 80s they arrived in new york and they would walk to washington square and then they would sit on a bench they barely spoke english my father none my mother a little and then they would listen for where they hear french you know haitian creole senegalese um france switzerland you know quebec whatever french accent they could hear and then they'd start talking to the people and basically ask them questions where they're from when did they arrive why this neighborhood what do they think about it where do they go and systematically they would come back with all kinds of suggestions of places to go things to get that i knew absolutely nothing about and they held court in the middle of the park and while i at that time used to think small talk tedious superficial my parents really were a proof of how important it actually is and you know many times people would accompany them and walk back with them to the house i mean and you know it wasn't just that my parents felt good about it and they felt like they were not just strangers who can't talk to anyone i know that the people who they talk to where those people who then have that smile on the face it's like that elderly couple you describe when you are walking with your dog and at first you said hello and then slowly it developed in ongoing conversations and i think my parents were right even when small talk is low stakes or inconsequential there's something really nice about two very different strangers that are passing time together and engaging in that dance which is exactly what you described when you talked about the pavement you know trying to find out something in common so go out in the world engage try out that small talk and as always thank you for joining letters from astaire live and subscribe and like bye

Channel: Esther Perel

Views: 82,796

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Id: pJyy6F4EtMc

Length: 27min 50sec (1670 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 16 2021