Good chats and awkward conversations were central to the plot of festive favourite Bridget Jones's Diary (2001). Photo / Laurie Sparham
“Hello, lovely to meet you. So, how much do you weigh?”
Don’t worry, you needn’t answer unless you wish to. But you’ll agree it’s a useful reminder of how not to make small talk if you want to succeed socially this Christmas.
You might assume it’s intuitive to avoid highly personal questions when shooting the breeze with a casual acquaintance over a glass of mulled wine. You’d be wrong. Sorry, let me phrase that more charmingly: It’s an interesting point of view, Susan, but you are perhaps mistaken.
Before the pandemic, academics in the US were offered advice on making chit-chat with their students. They were cautioned to steer clear of inquiring after a student’s age, weight or political opinions, and to focus on safer (if less interesting) conversational spaces: “What is your home town?” “Any fun weekend plans?” The kind of thing you learnt in German classes at secondary school, except in English, and without adding: “How do I find the railway station?”
Now, the tables have turned, and it’s the Covid generation of students, who came of age in their bedrooms, that reportedly need help with their small talk.
David Salisbury, assistant professor of geography, environment and sustainability at the University of Richmond in Virginia, told a British newspaper he advises students “to focus on things like learning something about other members of the group, giving credit to the ideas of others, using people’s names initially [and] using eye contact”.
All great pointers. Because who doesn’t love to be greeted with the words: “Hi Sarah, I remember how much you love tractors and there’s certainly some merit in your suggestion that Martians are controlling the government.”
But students can’t be the only ones who could benefit from a refresher in the art of small talk. With the festive season nigh, and with many of our conversations now conducted via emoji, we would all do well to remind ourselves what to say — and what not to — when mingling this December.
Straightforward questions like “Who will you vote for next year: Sir Keir or nobody?” and “Brexit, eh. Was it worth it?” are obvious no-gos. But almost everything is political, polarised and apt to trigger a furious row these days. Seemingly innocuous subjects, like Doctor Who, Christmas, air travel, dogs, traffic calming measures, I’m a Celebrity, cycling, Holly Willoughby, meat and gas hobs have become conversational danger zones.
Best to remain neutral initially (but don’t say Remain — it’s political); ask open-ended questions and feel your way. If you glean that your interlocutor shares your feelings about, say, Suella or second homes, then go for it — but not immediately.
“If you jump into a controversial space before building up a rapport, it’s probably not going to go well,” warns Georgie Nightingall, conversation expert at Trigger Conversations. “When bridging difficult topics, it’s good to be aware that one’s point of view is just that. Coming at it with curiosity and inviting people to share thoughts and feelings is really important.”
Always a tricky one, but never more so than now. To avoid causing offence, say nothing about the other person’s appearance, unless you’re giving a compliment and your intentions cannot be mistaken.
Are you a woman? Don’t ask this during small talk, but if you are one yourself, you have a small amount of additional leeway here. You may tell another woman you like her dress or haircut, but not her recently Botoxed face.
“Making compliments on things people have actively chosen, like the way they’ve done their hair, is much better than [complimenting] their looks, which they can’t control,” says Nightingall.
As ever, it’s important to read the room. “Making five compliments in a row might be a bit too much, [as might] frontloading with compliments when you haven’t approached that person before.”
A recent survey by Perspectus Global found vast swathes of millennial slang are loathed by the rest of society. If you don’t want your fellow party guests to despise you before you’ve even started your Chrimbo holibobs, then don’t say Chrimbo holibobs. Don’t call it din-dins; it’s dinner. Don’t call anything amazeballs or coolio. Anyone who says bants, with or without irony, is automatically not invited back. Likewise, anyone who says methinks, totes or happy Friyay.
No one wants reams of detail about yours. They especially don’t want this if they don’t have any of their own, and so can’t take revenge with an equally dull anecdote about their toddler’s bedtime routine.
If someone inquires after your children, keep your answer brief and to the point. Injecting a concise and witty anecdote is acceptable. (Fifty words should be plenty.)
Showing 35 pictures from your phone won’t win you friends. Nor will listing your children’s GCSE results — especially if they’ve done well. You can, in passing, mention which university they’ve got into, unless it’s Oxford or Cambridge, in which case you can never mention your child again. You’ll sound too immodest.
Inserting gratuitous information about your children’s accomplishments is especially offputting. Never say: “Archie — the one who’s reading history at Cambridge — will be here shortly. His sister Clemmie can’t make it as she’s starring in a Hollywood blockbuster today.”
Another potential minefield. “How’s your marriage?” may not be a suitable opening gambit as you clink prosecco flutes at the office party. But excessive probing into a single person’s business is rarely welcomed either. “Are you seeing anyone at the moment?” is very much on the borderline. “Still single, Martha? Can I set you up with my only remaining single male friend, Bernard? The one who always wears a trilby?” will not endear you to Martha. Nor will any mention of her biological clock.
Still, avoiding the subject of relationships altogether means not talking about a large chunk of our lives, observes Nightingall. The trick is not to force the other person to discuss something they might not wish to. Nightingall recommends inviting them to talk about the highlights of their year, or “meaningful” rather than romantic relationships. “And if you’re expecting or hoping for people to be open and vulnerable, you have to be the one who does it first,” she says.
Some people don’t drink and that’s fine. It’s 2023, not the 1990s. Stop asking them why they’re not drinking. Stop calling them boring. Stop trying to push wine on them. Stop wondering aloud if they may be pregnant — especially if they’re childless, over 60 or male. If they mumble something about antibiotics, don’t ask what they’re taking them for.
The usual trick is to down your drink in one, then exclaim that you need a top-up. Or you need to slip off “to the bathroom”, which is code for “to fresh conversational pastures”.
But according to Nightingall, exiting a conversation needn’t be this fraught or duplicitous. “Remember, both people want it to end and need the closure,” she says. “Parties have that embedded rule that you’re there to meet lots of people. So you can say, ‘I really enjoyed chatting to you; I don’t want to keep you from meeting everyone else.’”
You can, additionally, suggest connecting on social media afterwards. “Show you want to follow up with them in the future.”
Or offer to introduce them to other people, rather than leaving them hanging.
As Nightingall says: “It’s really valuable to recognise it’s okay to leave.”
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