Posts tagged no small talk
The normal you wish you were
The normal you wish you were

“It’s hard spending time with people who are the normal you wish you were,” said one of my closest friends. Her husband was struggling with a dependency on alcohol, and he found it painful to hang out with friends who could have a few drinks and call it a night. He would regularly talk himself into thinking he could be “normal” like them and just have a few drinks, but “a few” invariably turned into “too many” for him, and he would end up feeling shame about not being able to control his relationship with alcohol.
 

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Ashley Kirsnernormal, vulnerability, Skip the Small Talk, skip the small talk, small talk, no small talk, vulnerable, authentic, authenticity, weird, odd one out, fit in, want to fit in, I want to fit in, how to fit in, relationships, healthy relationships, isolation, isolated, lonely, alone, I feel alone, nobody gets me, blogs Comment
How to write better e-mails
How to write better e-mails

“Tuesday at 3 pm is great. Thanks for your flexibility. Looking forward to chatting then.”


Imagine that the above e-mail pops into your inbox. Do you get the impression that the message’s author is actually looking forward to talking to you? It probably depends on context, of course, but stock language like, “Looking forward to chatting,” or, “Thanks for your patience,” or even, “Sincerely,” are so overused that they’ve mostly lost their meaning. Those phrases and others like them are the “small talk” equivalent of e-mail; they’re polite, they usually don’t offer meaningful content, they don’t require a great deal of thought for either person in the interaction, and they are often the easiest mode of communication for people who don’t know each other well. (We’ll focus on work e-mails in this blogpost, but everything here applies just as much to other types of e-mails or online messages.)
 

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Ashley Kirsnere-mail, email, how to, how to write better e-mail, how to write better e-mails, how to write better email, how to write better emails, better email, better emails, better e-mail, better e-mails, Skip the Small Talk, skip the small talk, work, communication, communication problems, communicate better at work, how to communicate at work, office, small talk, no small talk, develop rapport, build relationships, how to build relationships, how to maintain connections, connections, networking, network, stock phrases, client, employee, clients, employees, internal states, internal state, sound like a robot, warmer, how to sound warmer over e-mail, sound warmer over e-mail, sound warmer over email, how to sound warmer over email, blogsComment
Do you know how to "be yourself?" The question that will help you be authentic even when the stakes are high
Do you know how to "be yourself?" The question that will help you be authentic even when the stakes are high

“Just be yourself!”
“Don’t worry about what other people think of you!”
“Dance like nobody’s watching!”
“To thine own self be true.”


We consume these truisms from the moment our infant brains can understand them and we don’t stop until we’ve seen one too many cliché-littered Pinterest boards. But the reality is, if you’re flailing your limbs on the dance floor without a single thought of who’s watching, or who’s within arm’s reach, you might accidentally smack someone in the face. How do you dance like you’re aware that people are watching, but you know that you’re dancing for yourself, and not for them? How can you think about the space you're taking up on the dance floor without having it affect your self-expression? How soon until we're done with this metaphor? It's important to "be true to yourself," but if you’re not thinking about how others respond to your behavior, you might be missing out on opportunities to connect, and you may even hurt others or yourself in the process.
 

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Ashley KirsnerSkip the Small Talk blog post, Skip the Small Talk blogpost, Skip the Small Talk blog, Skip the Small Talk, skip the small talk, no small talk, be yourself, just be yourself, don't worry, dance like nobody's watching, dance like nobody is watching, to thine own self, to thine own self be true, oversharing, tmi, identity, holidays, Christmas, in-laws, how to talk to in-laws, authenticity, authentic, genuine, genuineness, relationships, relationship, relationship advice, blogs
Five Thanksgiving icebreakers that don't suck
Five Thanksgiving icebreakers that don't suck

Ah, the holidays: A time when we hope our lives will look like those wholesome cartoon specials we watched as children, but also a time when anxieties about getting stuck in conversation with people who hold different political and moral ideologies might keep you from doing that happy dance from A Charlie Brown Christmas.


This Thanksgiving, we encourage you to take some time to connect with others in ways that feel authentic without feeling emotionally exhausting. To help the conversation flow, we offer you some ice-breakers that will get others to share about themselves while subtly nudging everyone’s mood in a positive direction. So if you do end up having the “here’s why racism is bad” conversation with Uncle Joe, you’ll have a buffer of positive experience--and perhaps some common ground--that’ll make it easier for you to communicate with one another.
 

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Ashley KirsnerThanksgiving, icebreaker, icebreakers, icebreaker questions, icebreaker question, gratitude, mood, good mood, positive, Thanksgiving icebreakers, questions to ask at Thanksgiving, how are you, how are you really, grateful, meaningful conversations, talk big, big talk, Skip the Small Talk, skip the small talk, no small talk, no small talk questions, how to skip the small talk, how to have conversations, conversation, conversations, meaningful conversation, deep conversation, deep conversations, family, how to talk to family, how to talk to people, how to get to know someone, how to meet people, communication, communication skills, healthy communication, self-disclosure, Christmas, holidays, Hanukkah, ChanukkahComment
How to escape small talk in two simple steps
How to escape small talk in two simple steps

We’ve all been there. You’re at a party, and somebody asks you a small talk question that you’re afraid will beget more small talk and before you know it, you’re thirty minutes deep into a discussion about traffic patterns in your local area. Whether the question that somebody is asking you is, “Where are you from?” Or, “Wasn’t the traffic getting here awful?” You can prevent your conversation from slipping into a night of small talk by responding the following way:

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Ashley Kirsnerhow to skip the small talk, learn how to skip the small talk, skip the small talk, how do i skip small talk, big talk, how to get closer to people, how to open up, how to open up to people, how to get people to open up to you, how to make friends, small talk, no small talk, how to escape small talk, escape small talk, deeper relationships, how to have better relationships, how to have better conversations, conversations, conversation, deep conversation, deep conversations, how to have deep conversations, how to have a deep conversation, how to talk about yourself, how to talk, how to be charming, be charming, how to small talk, how to do small talk, how to make small talk, how do I make small talk, networking, communicate, how to communicate, how to charm people, how to charm someone, how to respond to small talk, introverts, introvert, introversion, hate small talk, hating small talk Comments