Through my work I'm occasionally impelled into outside events (meetings, seminars, banquets etc.) where small talk with strangers is expected in due course. No matter how many of these things I attend, I never seem to get better at it or more accepting of it. If anything, I find it more burdensome as I grow older, because given a pretty massive sample size I've found that most people simply don't have much that's worthwhile to say. There's only so many times I can listen to random people talk about their kids, their job frustrations, their vacations, and their home improvement projects without completely zoning out. On rare occasions I will hear something new or interesting, but most of the time it's the same conversations with only the names changed to protect the innocent.
I am an exceedingly private person around people who aren't in my inner circle. This does not lend itself well to the sort of small talk that's expected at these sorts of things. As a result, I usually end up talking a lot about work and asking a lot of questions of others because stay the fuck out of my personal business, thank you very much.
