E13 – Small Talk

Julie and Jel Discuss

Julie Legg and Jel Legg discuss ‘small talk’ and ADHD – why is it so annoying?

They chat about why small talk seems at times painful when, not long after the pleasantries are over, the conversation doesn’t progress. Why is small talk frustrating? How can small talk become big talk? With practical insights, the episode highlights ways to make small talk more bearable while recognizing the preference for deeper, more rewarding connections.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Why Small Talk is Challenging for ADHDers: ADHD brains, driven by dopamine-seeking behavior, find traditional small talk unengaging and unrewarding. The lack of depth, interest, or entertainment in shallow conversations can quickly lead to boredom or frustration.

  • Strategies to Navigate Small Talk: Using humor can make brief exchanges more engaging and boost dopamine levels, even if the response from others is muted. Employing the “Gray Rock” strategy—providing simple, neutral responses—can help endure necessary but unenjoyable interactions, like formal events or routine meetings.

  • Context Matters: Small talk is tolerated in structured settings, such as workplace interactions or formal gatherings, but ADHDers often seek to transform mundane exchanges into more meaningful or entertaining interactions. Awareness of the purpose and limitations of small talk can help manage expectations.

  • Making the Most of It: Infusing energy and positivity into small talk can make it more bearable. Recognizing that small talk is often unavoidable, they suggest avoiding it when possible and striving to elevate conversations to more stimulating topics when appropriate.

LINKS

TRANSCRIPT

JULIE: I’m Julie Legg, author of The Missing Piece and diagnosed with ADHD at 52.

JEL: And I’m Jel Legg, diagnosed at 55.

JULIE: Welcome to ADHDifference. In this episode we’ll be talking about Small Talk, the whys, and the hows, and the wheres, and the goodness knows, how small talk is quite painful to many of us ADHDers. Small Talk, Jel? [Yes, Okay.] How are you? How are you today?

JEL: I’m good. I’m fine how are you? [Good, good.] That’s interesting.

JULIE: Yeah the weather’s looking a bit rainy.

JEL: Bit rainy. I’m bored already! Look there’s two things I need out of conversation. #1 is interest. I have to be interested in what we’re talking about and #2, entertainment. Now it’s actually either/or. If they come as a package that’s even better. So, for me, small talk is talk that does not have any interest for me, or entertainment value.

JULIE: And the reason why that is, for ADHD, is because of our dopamine deficiency so we’re looking, we’re drawn to that that will lift our dopamine by way of interest, and by way of fun, or entertainment, or pleasure, or reward.

JEL: Yeah, yes and the opposite, the antithesis to that, is that even if I take dopamine out of the equation and just think about all these neurons firing off and this busy, busy, mind that’s constantly going, if you come at me with small talk, and that’s all I’m getting, and it’s flat and boring small talk, presented in a boring way, then my mind’s completely somewhere else, and it just wants to bolt for the door. It wants to be gone. It’s not good, it’s not good at all.

JULIE: I often refer to small talk as ‘water cooler talk’, that’s more like in an office environment where you might see people on a regular basis, hourly basis even, and the questions remain quite flat. Again, about the weather, or what did you do on the weekend, when you know they’re not interested. You know, you know you could spill 5 minutes about what you did in the weekend and how exciting it was, but in some situations, you sense that they’re really not interested. The same with “Good morning Jel, how are you?” [“Fine.”] Yeah because … and why? So you’ve just engaged in small talk. Would you ever feel that you’d say “Actually Julie, I woke up with a, you know, with a numb leg and I’m you know, I forgot my breakfast, and then I dropped milk on the floor and got a bit frazzled and …” Would you ever go into any more detail if anyone asked you such a simple question as “How are you?”

JEL: No, not a first. No, no, because that’s an introduction to a conversation and it’s okay to have that introduction and 10 seconds later it needs to go somewhere interesting. [So that’s what I was getting at.] They’re pleasantries.

JULIE: Absolutely, so small talk is beyond the first couple of questions. I think we all have to put up with, go with the flow, and in many situations where you don’t necessarily spill all the tea in the first question. As you said, pleasantries. Absolutely.

JEL: An example would be … an example of a small talk conversation, and you may not agree as a listener, is “How’s work?” You don’t know what I do for a job really. You don’t know what’s involved with work. It’s … you’re not asking me the intricacies of how my business is going and how things are evolving in that area of commerce. You’re simply … want me to say “Fine, that’s good, yeah,” or “A bit down on orders at the moment, it’s tough times.” “Yeah, tough times. Anyway, how’s …” you know, that small talk. There’s no depth to it. It’s as shallow as a puddle. It’s … it doesn’t fire up the neurons, it doesn’t capture our interest, and it doesn’t entertain us. So, examples of where … some quick examples: so, you can meet someone that engages in small talk and isn’t very intellectual and isn’t going to have an intellectual conversation. We’re talking strangers here. Often someone in the supermarket or someone comes into your home for … into your space as perhaps a trades person of some kind, and they can have such energy, and such gregarious big outgoing character, and such a presence, that they become entertaining. And I’m fine with that and I can spend a lot of time around that. All the time the energy is there and they’re entertaining. It doesn’t need to go into some intellectual conversation. [Yes.] Then you can meet someone who’s flat as a pancake, very interesting. They’re really just dour and they have no real animation but boy do they have an interesting conversation. They know something about something and so I am always looking to learn something. I have to learn, constantly. And so they can be fine, and then you get the combination of someone with lots of energy and interesting things to say, and wow that’s just perfect! Thank you very much. Come on over anytime yeah.

JULIE: I think we, in the previous episode, we talked about weighting, putting a value on things, and I think when we’re … when we’re chatting to someone, we also put a weighting on the value of our relationship to each other. If they’re a stranger, it could be a hit and miss. It could just be a fly by night “Hello, how’re you going?” and a bit of a chuckle, and you don’t wish for any more than that. That kind of ticks the boxes for that time. But people that you have a … whether it be a family member or a work colleague, that you have an ongoing relationship with, I think for me my expectations are relatively high. I’m not satisfied just bumbling along with pleasantries. I just feel the need that we go deeper into a conversation. I’m interested in psychology and philosophy and bits and pieces. Now that would scare the living daylights out of many people that are just quite content to talk about netball or rugby, which is of no interest to me. So, you know, I’ve got a give and take with that. Some things that I’m interested in might not interest others. So, I get that but the perfect match, as you said, is that even in small talk if you’re able to draw out from them, in a short space of time, something that might be of interest to you, or have, be it a similar hobby or thought, and that’s a good space.

JEL: And it doesn’t even have to be that your interest in psychology and philosophy at this stage, has been other interests before and after, and will come after, and I have a list of things I’m interested in but actually what we’re interested in is not actually the interesting thing. We’re not demanding to only engage with people who are interested in things we’re interested in. It’s much simpler than that. It’s, you know “Hello, how are you?” “Fine.” Boom. “What do you think about what happened with that IT issue yesterday, or today almost actually, or last week, that’s “What did you think about that?” “Wow, that was a big one. It was. Did you know someone …” and there is where the conversation goes beyond small talk and it’s a shared experience of something we all go through. Whether it’s a world event, a local event, the weather. The weather’s boring unless it’s not boring! Unless we’ve just had a whacking great storm come through. “How did you manage in the storm?” “Oh, the damage up the road …” that’s okay. That’s enough to keep us going, but when you ask a question, or you don’t get any questions back relating to anything, and it just sticks on one level. One level. Often asking about how other people are around us that we know, whatever, or “How’s so and so?” Well go and ask them! It’s me you’re having the conversation with. It’s, this is why we’re talking now. So I don’t know how someone else is and I’m not necessarily interested until I speak to that person and ask them how it is. I think another one to be honest, working … well, when I used to work with people on a daily basis, which is a long time ago, I managed to sort of get out of that environment work for myself at home, so remotely which works for me, nearly 20 years ago now or over 20 years actually, anyway … gossip about things, and sometimes about people, which is naughty, can be interesting provided it’s entertaining. Just plain old moaning about people is not interesting but gossip that’s entertaining, or has an edge to it, yeah I do get something from that in the short term. So yeah really, let’s come back to … I’m probably going a little off track here but coming back to what small talk, why small talk is boring and what are the examples of small … well, we’ve done examples of small talk.

JULIE: But I think if we if we get back to … for ADHDers versus neurotypicals, and just like a hungry person will always be on the lookout for food, that becomes a priority for them, with a deficiency in dopamine we’re always on the lookout, subconsciously, for anything to lift out dopamine. And yes, it will be things of interest or things that reward us in some way. It doesn’t mean bungee jumping necessarily, that’s you know that’s another league altogether, but there’s small little things that can raise our dopamine and sparking up an interesting conversation is certainly one of those.

JEL: Yeah, well done you brought it back to where I was thinking. It’s … so for example in our marriage when we get up first thing in the morning, though it’s not always at the same time, but when we meet when we’re in that space for tea/coffee/breakfast, we don’t engage in really interesting conversations straight away. Our brains are waking up. What I need to do is I need to go and spend an hour pouring over online newspapers from as far … the other side of the world, here – local news, international news, whatever is going on. My brain, as it wakes up, it needs to consume interesting stories. Whether that’s having a dopamine effect or not, I don’t know. A psychiatrist will have to tell me.

JULIE: I would think it is. [So, yeah.] Well, it’s fulfilling that void of … with interesting information. It’s almost like it becomes a conversation with yourself, doesn’t it? You don’t actually need a physical person to interact with your … you’re soaking that in.

JEL: So okay, so say it is dopamine, I yeah I’m sure it could be that, okay, but for me it feels like these neurons are firing, firing, firing. They sort of … they’ve woken up and they’re ready for interest. Interest. Is it interesting? What am I going to learn? What’s happened overnight? I really need to know. Not because it’s going to turn my world upside down, it’s essential. It’s because I just need to know. I need to engage with some information that’s interesting as my brain wakes up. And then once that’s, you know, gone through that process then we start the conversations. And then we might discuss what’s going on. “You’ll find this interesting,” and it is not … it can be over here, it can be macroeconomics, or something really on paper quite dull but interesting, because it, you know, it’s relevant to something in the world, something political. And then over here it can be ‘Dog Ate My Car’. I love that. It’s like “Oh my God, literally the dog ate your car!” That’s got my interest and then … so and that’s humorous and entertaining. So, one’s very dull and boring and would interest very few people, would interest me, and the other one’s entertaining. So, it flips between the two. Then at a certain point armed with coffee and tea and breakfast, I’m ready now for the world. And then later on that day is more likely when we’ll have the more interesting conversations. But if I’m waking up … now imagine a short breakfast, going into work with a bunch of boring people that just don’t have … but you go to work and you’re there to work, so you don’t really have time to have those in-depth conversations, so I understand and accept that. But I need to get them from somewhere and if I can’t get them from a person, or people, I have to get them from what I read. My brain just can’t cope with dullness.

JULIE: I agree and it’s this boring, the boring thing, and … sadly. But at times we need to suffer small talk. Goodness, it might be at a funeral and there are some pleasantries with guests that we just need to go through. We might not be in the mood to do that but it’s the right thing to do.

JEL: Just to stop … yeah funerals are relatively rare, so I think to be fair on us ADHDers, when we have these sombre occasions, we do, we rightfully mask in a situation like that and we should do and there’s … no, I don’t think we have any issue doing that, for these solemn moments. That’s fine. [Absolutely.] I know where you’re going with this example, let’s think of more regular catch ups with …

JULIE: Yes, with a regular, a group, acquaintance group, or a hobby group, or some sort of reunion of sorts.

JEL: Regular meetings that have to be held with clients or something.

JULIE: Yeah yeah. So, for me I don’t like them and I switch off and I just end up being a gray rock which is, I anticipate, again this is not necessarily a good strategy, but I anticipate that this isn’t going to lead anywhere. It’s not going to interest me and so I get it over and done with and I’m likely just to give yes or no answers. Yes, I’m fine thank you. Yes, it looks like it’s a bit of a rainy day today. Great let’s get on with what we meant to be talking about. At least the meeting might be interesting, fingers crossed. But yeah, there are sometimes we just need to suffer but we can, as I mentioned before, we can make it interesting too. We can try and in that, a very short space of time, try and see if we can pluck out some interesting moments or something of … that we’re both interested in, both parties interested in, and then that just gives us a slightly different line of conversation perhaps the next time we chat.

JEL: Yeah, so unfortunately if we’re forced into these situations on a regular basis we do probably rely on the masking and that, you know, masking is generally a very bad thing with ADHD. It’s something we don’t want to do but sometimes it can be our friend. Sometimes you put the mask on. As long as you know you’re putting the mask on, as long as you’re aware of it, and as long as you remove it afterwards and find a way of getting back to yourself, sometimes you just have to do that. You can’t change other people and you can’t expect them to be interesting or interesting enough for us. So, it’s awareness that it’s okay with ADHD we probably have a very low tolerance for boring conversations and boring people delivering them.

JULIE: Yes, so on that, there is a … there is an unofficial kind of strategy called the Gray Rock strategy, and I write about it in the book, and basically is intentionally wearing a mask and it was, or could be used, in a situation with a narcissist or someone who’s … who wants you to over talk and overshare and prod you, and poke you for an emotion. And in a situation when you go “Well actually I’m not ready for this,” or “This isn’t an appropriate situation or in environment,” we can be a gray rock. And that is basically not feeding them with anything worthy of digesting. So, it’s yes or no answers, and it’s not being mean about it. It’s smiling hmmm and because you don’t become interesting, they move on to someone else, or they kind of give up on you. Now that is a form of masking but that is used as a tool and, as Jel said, it’s temporary. You put it on. You take it out, you put it on, and you take it straight off as soon as you’re able to. So rather than feeling that it’s your default, it’s actually an intentional practice. So that’s called the Gray Rock theory and again it’s not scientifically proven, but anecdotally it can work in those situations that you need to push through.

JEL: Yeah, no I agree with that. I use the gray rock as best I can. Small talk, back to small talk, the other thing that occurs to me with small talk is … another way of putting is shallow conversation where things just don’t go beyond base one. They don’t go into any interesting spaces where you’re going to learn something. For me, if I’m interested, I just need to go deeper into something all the time. I need to learn, learn, learn. I’ve said that. Small talk can almost be entertainment in the way it comes back from … well, not entertainment, so the news for instance. You know, we don’t watch TV news because for me it accounts/equates to small talk because they’re snippets of information and updates but there’s no depth behind them. There’s no why’s, where’s wherefores and that sort of thing, which is why I can’t stand television news. As particularly in New Zealand, I’m sorry to say, it’s really poor but I do love to read news and so what … sounds a bit snobby, but what we used to call the broad sheets, where you’ll find a piece of news and then there’s proper investigative journalism behind it that goes behind the scenes. That’s gone from small talk to big talk even though it’s a one-way communication with me, that’s what I need and I keep that in mind when having conversations with people. That’s what I’m trying to describe here and it’s okay to understand that, I think.

JULIE: And you’re talking about sort of deep diving into information and the same could be said versus headline news versus a documentary, where they do have an opportunity to deep dive and thoroughly investigate something, that’s also of interest and wouldn’t be but, anyway, that’s one way because we’re looking at a screen.

JEL: Sometimes it’s entertaining because you see it in the news “Oh there’s been a terrible snowstorm,” or “Everyone’s locked in by the snow and we spoke to the locals. This is Dan.” “Oh yeah, it’s been really cold eh, there’s lots of snow.” Cut. It’s like yeah, that’s small talk that small entertainment, you know. It doesn’t work but it can get … One of my survival mechanisms of this small talk thing is turning something into a joke. In fact, when I engage with someone and it’s a passing moment with a stranger or something, I try humor. And humor with you know with respect and, but presence, energy, humor. If I get that humor back … it doesn’t matter how small the talk may be for a wee while, we’ve engaged on some level. So now I’m getting entertained and if I’m getting entertained perhaps I’m getting the dopamine.

JULIE: Yes and in fact, even if there’s a null or a dull response you’re probably lifting your dopamine levels anyway because you’re entertaining yourself you know.

JEL: Oh well, that makes … yeah that’s not … the mean way of doing it when I think oh, but that doesn’t last too long because I don’t like to laugh at other people. I like to laugh with them but they can sometimes ….

JULIE: Not laughing at them, just you know, when we laugh and we smile we … it’s good for us, so it’s rewarding, self-rewarding.

JEL: So, in the spirit of small talk this is perhaps one of our shorter episodes because we don’t want to linger on small talk for too long. We’d rather get stuck into the deeper stuff but yes you know, you, probably like us, don’t enjoy it. There are ways of surviving it. The number one rule I think is to avoid it if you can. Yeah but if you can’t, there are ways of surviving it.

JULIE: Yeah and it’s all about interest, and reward, and pleasure with this lift in dopamine. And if you can keep that in the back of your mind, maybe you can help with the small talk. Just lift it out of that sad little boring space. [Shallow puddle.] Thanks for listening.

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