In the week the results of a study announced that small talk made you unhappy. Yes, I know that summary doesn't really cover the whole study but it's the headline every news agency has been using so I thought I would too. In superficially more depth the study says talking makes you happy and that happier people will have more involved conversations whilst the depressed engage in chit chat. Now I could be wrong since I don't have access to the actual figures they published, merely the news reports on them, but by my calculation happy people who speak 70% more than their gloomy friends probably engage in more small talk even if it accounts for a lower percentage of their talking time. Just a hunch that this is actually what the study shows, as I say, I may be wrong, but from a personal angle it seems to make sense.

Certainly for me something I actually find most absent from my life is small talk. It's not completely missing it's true, simply such a minor aspect of my life and I can't help but feel I miss out because of it. Now I freely admit I'm to blame for this - I've largely lost the skill. I somewhat enjoy meatier topics; providing you're talking to someone who can listen to both sides of a debate I think it's very fulfilling, it only becomes frustrating when people debate at oblique tangents and don't listen. But ironically probably my biggest problem is that I can listen. I have become someone that others are happy offloading to, and I won't lie it, it makes me feel honoured that people trust me with their problems, flattered that they feel comfortable talking to me. It's made things difficult at times though. I have foolishly sacrificed more important things to be a shoulder to cry on, maybe it's guilt at letting people down, maybe it's fear that without being a Good Friend(™) they may not want me as any kind of friend. It may even go back further than that.

Anyone who has ever met my mother will tell you she can talk. Boy can she talk! It's not a bad thing, but certainly she taught me how to listen. Growing up around people who insisted on attention meant I gradually became quieter and quieter. People who crave attention do that to me. I can't be bothered fighting for an audience with them, I realise that should the limelight fall on anyone but these attention seekers they will usually try their hardest to regain it, often by belittling the person who had the gall to divert attention from their egos. So I learnt to listen, and I learnt that speaking out was dangerous. These days apathy means I cannot be bothered putting myself in their sights rather than fear of what they can do to me. An apathy which partly stems from a security I never used to have, but also the scars they left on me before I understood I wasn't the one with a problem.

So I learnt to stay quiet, and I learnt to listen.

I have learnt the above can be a dangerous combination. I think I was about 15 the last time anyone really asked how my day had been out of curiousity rather than a reaction to the fact that I didn't appear my usual self. Instead I sit back and listen to others tell me about their days. Of course there's another level to that. My dad and sister both have a very invasive questioning style. It's not "Did you do anything interesting today?" it's "What did you do today?" I didn't grow up with small-talk, I grew up being questioned; ironically by two very secretive people themselves. Like many growing up I wanted some space and independance, so the inquisition at every action grew tiresome, and I grew quieter still.

These days I don't do small-talk. Very little gets on my radar as "interesting" enough to tell anyone about; I find myself unable to volunteer information about my day after a lifetime of it resulting in 20 questions to justify why I would speak about myself for a change. I wait for people to ask, then I wonder where their questioning will end.

I am strange I admit, but I guess I never really learnt how to do small-talk. I can do banter, I can do superficial, but I can't do myself. Maybe one day I'll learn how.