Sejal Says, "Small Talk is Not Truly Polite"

How many times have you personally started or ended a conversation with the phrase, "How are you?", "How's the weather?", or "Nice to see you?" and truly meant it. I'm sure, for many of you, these redundant phrases are just resources that are used to amicably start and end a conversation with no awkwardness. As discovered by an anthropologist who studied freshman in college, many people use friendly phrases such as "Let's get in touch" to convey politeness rather than genuinely asking others these questions. The real question then becomes, if people are asking superficial questions with answers they don't care about, why ask the questions at all?

In my opinion, however, this small talk is not polite at all. In fact, a majority of society is aware of this facade of fake politeness so continuing to use it is simply rude. Why not ask the deeper questions rather than sticking to the surface of conversation potential. If you truly want to connect with a person, don't be afraid to dig a little deeper. As seen by the meme I created, one person is asking someone, "How are you?" even though they are visibly not okay but as stated by social etiquette, the other person responds with a generic "Great, how are you?".

Is this what human connection has come to, after being one of the most intelligent and evolved species on the planet, we are going to use basic, unempathetic phrases to communicate with our peers. So, I am not saying that we need to cease using these polite phrases but this should not be the extent of a conversation, we need to add some meat to these messages. So next time you talk to someone, after asking them how their day is or how the weather is, try to ask a question that gets both of you out of your comfort zone. Because that is when the true connection begins.