I think a more helpful frame is seeing this less as a practice of rhetoric and to instead see it as a practice of emotional maturity.
When you speak with someone, you likely are not aware of everything that is going on with their current emotional state. If they're having a good day or bad, if they even have had the time to build insight on it, what's nagging at them, etc. You may also not know where their ideologies, ethics, morality, etc are since these are only really shared with the ones close to them. And even then these shift and ebb especially if someone is at a formative time of their life (eg a college student).
So every initial conversation is a little back-and-forth of mapping this out, warming up, and saving the deeper stuff for later. It's a trust-building exercise where you suss out if someone will be receptive, if they'll validate your experience of the world or if they're more likely to be closed off and dismissive. Because the latter hurts and that hurt can last longer than you expect.
I personally don't find small talk rejuvenating and used to get bored of it quickly. I think the thing that irked me was that I always saw myself as open-minded and receptive and it felt like a waste of time, just get to the point, etc. But these days I'm keenly aware that we're not all at the same place internally and someone may have had some less-than-ideal experiences they're still holding onto. I can be sympathetic to that even if it means I'm bored for a few minutes of my day - it's really the least that I can do.
(Getting to the point:) I once heard a perfect explanation of the small talk phenomenon. It's like two modems establishing a link: they send to each other signals that are intended to asses how the line behaves, how well the other side hears you, and what it supports. Thus small talk may never be a pithy conversation: its purpose is to be a formal, predictable, zero-surprise exchange. Skipping it and going straight to the point may result in a badly botched communication attempt.
It's like letting a cat sniff your hand or get used to your presence. We're smelling each other out at a subconscious level.
And more concretely, you're determining someone's values before offending them. Through small talk you might discover they're more conservative. Maybe they're hippies at heart. Maybe they hate dark humor, maybe they love it.
If you know those things, you can choose which serious conversations you'd like to have and which you'd better avoid. Plus the process of sniffing each other out means there's more baseline trust going in.
It could be. Or maybe she just wanted to enjoy his company for a while, fly around in the clouds until she had to make her final approach and make sure to stick the landing.
I don't think it's that people online need to have more unstructured discussion, or "not get to the point" -- it's that there's no real sense of community in a lot of online spaces. Why would I spend a bunch of time idly having Seinfeldian conversations with strangers with whom I have no rapport or continuity? The vast majority of people who will read my social media comments will be completely invisible to me. All the years of commenting and interacting online have predictably resulted in precisely zero lasting relationships.
If the point of not getting to the point is to build trust, then there has to be a relationship in which that trust is invested. Otherwise, not getting to the point is just more invitation for someone to take issue or dismiss what you're saying, to divert the discussion, or to completely miss the actual points you want to discuss.
The trick though is to gravitate towards places where there is a community and where you end up talking to a few of the same people. HN's probably not going to be it, an IRC channel, Discord, forum, etc, where you keep talking to the same dozen regulars is much better.
I had so many good times doing this when I was younger, on IRC and Forums back in the late 90s, early 00s. I haven't had much luck since then though unfortunately.
Any advice for finding the smaller communities? I've been trying to join larger more public communities to make the initial connections with people but mostly I find that they are either ghost towns with thousands of people but no one is active, or they are so active it's just noise that no one is really keeping up with
Looks like someone just learned of "ice breaking" for the first time.
All those "ice breaking" exercises you do at work? It's started by like people like the author. They don't have a clue exactly how it should come about. (at least the author understands the concept but still dangerous to implement it at offices as they don't really dig it yet. but it's been 11 years for him so should be better by now)
The author comes as one of those awkward people who gets to the points without any "softening". You seens those people. The author is exactly that kinda person. Annoying but at least don't waste your time. But not great as a close friend but OK as an acquitence.
> There are many, many more people who are clueless about how to behave in online conversations than there are people who are clueless about how to behave in offline ones. How I came to be the flipside of that, I don’t know.
I tried to use "logical" sense here for comments as but acts like the author because I am semi-anonymous here. IRL, I am as cordial and courteous as possible. and try not to shove "logic" into someon's face.
Anyways, glad to see someone understanding the point of ice-breaking late in life (better late than never, thus kudos).
Thanks to whoever posted this 11yo gem. I've never read it. Its humbling and encouraging to see someone willing to post his fumblings even in his 50's. I feel like he'd been lambasted or mocked had he posted this today on substack or twitter.
As a younger man I was more of the "Just say what you mean, get straight to the point" kind of guy. I think what changed for me is that I learned that people are often much more interesting than their opinions. Going to someone wanting one-word answers to everything (outside of a work context) can become very impersonal and extractive. Its reductionist. It's assuming you're the only one with deep thoughts, conflicted feelings on certain topics, and interesting opinions.
Post was good but I was more interested in his blog posts from 2002 since he was posting every month at the time when Billy Beane took the A’s to victory. I’ve read Moneyball so figured there might’ve been more of a reaction.
To me the article and the comments read as cope. To me personally, and I just mean to me personally I don’t see any value in smalltalk and I don’t enjoy it. And when I do smalltalk I feel bad after it, like I’ve wasted my time. I enjoy learning, exchanging problems, fixing problems together, sports, exercise lifting, reading good books and I would rate myself 8.5/10 happy in life.
But smalltalk is for me nothing useful and ranks along, maybe better off time as tv shows or scrolling. But I don’t think there is inherent value after checking out compability.
The problem is exacerbated by the rhetorical approach of saying "i don't understand" when people really mean " i disagree" , or "i prefer".
Contemporary rhetoric nearly always prefers passive-aggressive positions. People don't want to be pinned down to a position. They refuse to disagree, even over uncontroversial positions.
"I don't understand why you want to paint the shed blue" . Look, I explained it with 3 paragraphs. It's totally acceptable for you to want red, but it's frustrating to hear you say you don't understand why I'm proposing blue.
> food and drink spare us from the burden of needing to have something to say throughout the whole conversation
It's usually the source of new topics when I'm at lunch. People inevitably order something different that looks good, or have a funny story they're reminded of when they see something.
Meals where the topic veers into food preferences and lengthy comparisons to other food that was eaten another time make me want to leave my body. But it’s such a common default in mixed groups.
It’s a safe entry point, anyone can chime in and borders on phatic. I get it. But my preference is it triggers something quickly like a funny story as op said. Too often the ritual just gets stuck.
Yeah I was thinking along the lines of Seinfeld, but obviously it doesn't have to be that cheesy. That show just generally has a really good grasp of everyday idle chatter, and maybe even defined it culturally to some extent.
e.g.
Oh you got the big salad? I had a friend once who asked for a big salad. I paid for it, but my girlfriend took credit when she handed her the bag! The audacity!
I've always been a picky eater and it's been a source of a lot of embarrassing situations for me in my life. Now I'm celiac too, and many people still kind of roll their eyes when I say I have to be gluten free. Talking about food with people I don't know well makes me uncomfortable as hell.
To the point raised in another conment: it doesn't feel like a safe easy topic for me because in my life it often hasn't been
There is also sightly different and essential skill that is required for business leaders, politicians, spokes persons etc. You should only say what you to need to say, but never get to the point or answer the specific question asked.
Jean-Claude Juncker line, from 2007 when he was Luxembourg's prime minister and head of the Eurogroup: "We all know what to do, we just don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it."
25 comments:
I think a more helpful frame is seeing this less as a practice of rhetoric and to instead see it as a practice of emotional maturity.
When you speak with someone, you likely are not aware of everything that is going on with their current emotional state. If they're having a good day or bad, if they even have had the time to build insight on it, what's nagging at them, etc. You may also not know where their ideologies, ethics, morality, etc are since these are only really shared with the ones close to them. And even then these shift and ebb especially if someone is at a formative time of their life (eg a college student).
So every initial conversation is a little back-and-forth of mapping this out, warming up, and saving the deeper stuff for later. It's a trust-building exercise where you suss out if someone will be receptive, if they'll validate your experience of the world or if they're more likely to be closed off and dismissive. Because the latter hurts and that hurt can last longer than you expect.
I personally don't find small talk rejuvenating and used to get bored of it quickly. I think the thing that irked me was that I always saw myself as open-minded and receptive and it felt like a waste of time, just get to the point, etc. But these days I'm keenly aware that we're not all at the same place internally and someone may have had some less-than-ideal experiences they're still holding onto. I can be sympathetic to that even if it means I'm bored for a few minutes of my day - it's really the least that I can do.
(Getting to the point:) I once heard a perfect explanation of the small talk phenomenon. It's like two modems establishing a link: they send to each other signals that are intended to asses how the line behaves, how well the other side hears you, and what it supports. Thus small talk may never be a pithy conversation: its purpose is to be a formal, predictable, zero-surprise exchange. Skipping it and going straight to the point may result in a badly botched communication attempt.
It's like letting a cat sniff your hand or get used to your presence. We're smelling each other out at a subconscious level.
And more concretely, you're determining someone's values before offending them. Through small talk you might discover they're more conservative. Maybe they're hippies at heart. Maybe they hate dark humor, maybe they love it.
If you know those things, you can choose which serious conversations you'd like to have and which you'd better avoid. Plus the process of sniffing each other out means there's more baseline trust going in.
It could be. Or maybe she just wanted to enjoy his company for a while, fly around in the clouds until she had to make her final approach and make sure to stick the landing.
> its purpose is to be a formal, predictable, zero-surprise exchange
You might want to revise that as "no unpleasant surprises and minimal surprises in general".
People will always surprise you, but we prefer pleasant surprises.
Read it while you can, third-level .name TLDs are being discontinued next year by Verisign. [0]
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.name#Discontinuation_of_third...
Additionally, a recent thread:
https://neil.fraser.name/news/2026/09/03/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49550772
Thanks for letting us know about that.
Here is an archive link of the original blog post:
https://archive.is/zi6qn
Going to post it here in case someone several years from now comes to this thread and wants to read the original blog post.
I don't think it's that people online need to have more unstructured discussion, or "not get to the point" -- it's that there's no real sense of community in a lot of online spaces. Why would I spend a bunch of time idly having Seinfeldian conversations with strangers with whom I have no rapport or continuity? The vast majority of people who will read my social media comments will be completely invisible to me. All the years of commenting and interacting online have predictably resulted in precisely zero lasting relationships.
If the point of not getting to the point is to build trust, then there has to be a relationship in which that trust is invested. Otherwise, not getting to the point is just more invitation for someone to take issue or dismiss what you're saying, to divert the discussion, or to completely miss the actual points you want to discuss.
It worked quite well for me!
The trick though is to gravitate towards places where there is a community and where you end up talking to a few of the same people. HN's probably not going to be it, an IRC channel, Discord, forum, etc, where you keep talking to the same dozen regulars is much better.
I had so many good times doing this when I was younger, on IRC and Forums back in the late 90s, early 00s. I haven't had much luck since then though unfortunately.
Any advice for finding the smaller communities? I've been trying to join larger more public communities to make the initial connections with people but mostly I find that they are either ghost towns with thousands of people but no one is active, or they are so active it's just noise that no one is really keeping up with
This is famously not a thing for Dutch people :-) There are definitely cultural differences.
This scene: John Adams meets the Dutch...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj1cgBI5rdI
Looks like someone just learned of "ice breaking" for the first time.
All those "ice breaking" exercises you do at work? It's started by like people like the author. They don't have a clue exactly how it should come about. (at least the author understands the concept but still dangerous to implement it at offices as they don't really dig it yet. but it's been 11 years for him so should be better by now)
The author comes as one of those awkward people who gets to the points without any "softening". You seens those people. The author is exactly that kinda person. Annoying but at least don't waste your time. But not great as a close friend but OK as an acquitence.
> There are many, many more people who are clueless about how to behave in online conversations than there are people who are clueless about how to behave in offline ones. How I came to be the flipside of that, I don’t know.
I tried to use "logical" sense here for comments as but acts like the author because I am semi-anonymous here. IRL, I am as cordial and courteous as possible. and try not to shove "logic" into someon's face.
Anyways, glad to see someone understanding the point of ice-breaking late in life (better late than never, thus kudos).
Thanks to whoever posted this 11yo gem. I've never read it. Its humbling and encouraging to see someone willing to post his fumblings even in his 50's. I feel like he'd been lambasted or mocked had he posted this today on substack or twitter.
As a younger man I was more of the "Just say what you mean, get straight to the point" kind of guy. I think what changed for me is that I learned that people are often much more interesting than their opinions. Going to someone wanting one-word answers to everything (outside of a work context) can become very impersonal and extractive. Its reductionist. It's assuming you're the only one with deep thoughts, conflicted feelings on certain topics, and interesting opinions.
Post was good but I was more interested in his blog posts from 2002 since he was posting every month at the time when Billy Beane took the A’s to victory. I’ve read Moneyball so figured there might’ve been more of a reaction.
To me the article and the comments read as cope. To me personally, and I just mean to me personally I don’t see any value in smalltalk and I don’t enjoy it. And when I do smalltalk I feel bad after it, like I’ve wasted my time. I enjoy learning, exchanging problems, fixing problems together, sports, exercise lifting, reading good books and I would rate myself 8.5/10 happy in life.
But smalltalk is for me nothing useful and ranks along, maybe better off time as tv shows or scrolling. But I don’t think there is inherent value after checking out compability.
This is just _my_ unfiltered view.
The problem is exacerbated by the rhetorical approach of saying "i don't understand" when people really mean " i disagree" , or "i prefer".
Contemporary rhetoric nearly always prefers passive-aggressive positions. People don't want to be pinned down to a position. They refuse to disagree, even over uncontroversial positions.
"I don't understand why you want to paint the shed blue" . Look, I explained it with 3 paragraphs. It's totally acceptable for you to want red, but it's frustrating to hear you say you don't understand why I'm proposing blue.
> food and drink spare us from the burden of needing to have something to say throughout the whole conversation
It's usually the source of new topics when I'm at lunch. People inevitably order something different that looks good, or have a funny story they're reminded of when they see something.
Meals where the topic veers into food preferences and lengthy comparisons to other food that was eaten another time make me want to leave my body. But it’s such a common default in mixed groups.
what do you prefer to talk about?
It’s a safe entry point, anyone can chime in and borders on phatic. I get it. But my preference is it triggers something quickly like a funny story as op said. Too often the ritual just gets stuck.
Yeah I was thinking along the lines of Seinfeld, but obviously it doesn't have to be that cheesy. That show just generally has a really good grasp of everyday idle chatter, and maybe even defined it culturally to some extent.
e.g.
Oh you got the big salad? I had a friend once who asked for a big salad. I paid for it, but my girlfriend took credit when she handed her the bag! The audacity!
Personally? Almost literally anything but food
I've always been a picky eater and it's been a source of a lot of embarrassing situations for me in my life. Now I'm celiac too, and many people still kind of roll their eyes when I say I have to be gluten free. Talking about food with people I don't know well makes me uncomfortable as hell.
To the point raised in another conment: it doesn't feel like a safe easy topic for me because in my life it often hasn't been
There is also sightly different and essential skill that is required for business leaders, politicians, spokes persons etc. You should only say what you to need to say, but never get to the point or answer the specific question asked.
Jean-Claude Juncker line, from 2007 when he was Luxembourg's prime minister and head of the Eurogroup: "We all know what to do, we just don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it."