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The last time I went to America, I stopped in at a café for a java. While waiting for my bill of fare to go through, the woman behind the counter smiled and said, "What are your plans for the weekend?"

And I said, "Uh, I dunno."

"The atmospheric condition is nice, huh?"

"Sure is," I replied.

This is an example of small talk. Information technology'southward the rima oris's version of drumming its fingers.

An attempt to do small-scale talk in Russia

Back in Russia, I met my friend Elena for coffee.

"Why did y'all write that if you lot talk to Russiansthey might want to murder and eat y'all?" she asked.

"They practise! When y'all try to talk to them with pocket-sized talk."

"Not truthful," she said.

"Yep information technology is, especially with strangers."

She shook her head and rolled her optics at me.

"Correct, then like when you're in line at the shop, if I were to randomly start talking to you about something dumb, similar if I started telling you about my 24-hour interval and how much I liked your blouse or the weather."

"No 1 would do that," she said.

I laughed. "Oh, oh yep, in America they practise."

She looked at me, suspicious, every bit though I'd simply said, "You know in America, people eat their ain toes with ketchup."

The thing is, the simply time a stranger has always volunteered something random to me on the streets of Russia, information technology was a nice old blind woman who said, "Oh, aren't you a handsome boy" before turning to the air beside my face and maxim "...and you too."

What Russians think about small-scale talk

I asked a few Russians what they idea about small talk and received responses like:

"I personally hate small talkers - why they are talking to me? Are they really interested in my mood? Can't they find out the weather on the internet? Are they going to ask some favor from me? But become away or say what y'all want directly!"

And:

"Russians don't really run across the betoken of talking near obvious and banal things, it'southward but boring to usa and is not a part of our culture."

Another Russian I spoke to thinks geography influences small talk: "Location means a lot," he said. "I think that it's all near the conditions: you only don't talk much where you only see snow and darkness for viii months. You can talk endlessly where the sun is shining all the time and the wine is free of charge."

The verdict seemed grim.

Only I didn't desire to just take people's word for it, and so I decided to go out and endeavor out some small talk on Russians. There's a shop downwards the road with a little café stand up in information technology where I get my morning java. The shopkeepers know me, when I walk in one will say, "Hi my friend," and the other, "How are yous?" but clearly doesn't expect a response. So, while waiting for my coffee I turned to the human being behind the counter and said in Russian, "Then, the conditions today, huh?"

He frowned at me, then looked over my shoulder at the pissing rain and icy sidewalks of Saint petersburg in Spring and said:

"F*ck the weather "

"Are you talking to me?"

I did this in front of my friend Ivan at a café. The lady behind the counter had just handed me my latte and I said, "It's going to be a nice weekend, whatsoever plans?"

She straight-up ignored me and I turned to find Ivan frowning. "Are you talking to me?" he asked.

"No, I was trying to have pocket-size-talk, you lot know, merely talk with the barista."

"Just you have a girlfriend?"

"What? Yes, no, just modest talk, y'all know, talk about something completely useless for the sake of engaging in conversation."

He thought about it for a bit then on the walk back to my place he said, "Sometimes I wish at that place was smaller talk, my friends are always talking about such philosophical things." And then he added, "Merely it does happen sometimes, in the shop the other twenty-four hours I most forgot to buy a lighter for my cigarettes and the woman behind the counter told me about how all forenoon she needed a lighter only couldn't find a working one and she believed she was cursed. Is this common in America?"

I said, "Yeah, especially in the south. And very often when I'm in shops conversations will get stuck upwardly near the atmospheric condition, or the news, or some-such nonsense."

"Maybe, information technology's then lonely people can hide amend. If you're all talking all of the time, then how would y'all know who is solitary?"

Big talks

If there are Russians who enjoy small talk, I haven't met them.

On the reverse, Russians like big and sometimes very personal talk - you might see a Russian, especially on the train or in a bar, and within a few hours be as thick every bit thieves.

I came beyond this in my quest for small talk in the dirty Pushkin Bar. I was choosing a beer. There was only one other man in the place besides the bartender and he stood at the counter and watched me. Now, in America, I might plow to the man and say, "How's it going?" and he would nod, grinning and say something similar, "Non bad, cracking, some atmospheric condition we're having." And I'd say, "Yeah."

But when I turned to this man, who I later (much later) learnt was named Tim, and said, "How's it going?" something very different happened.

Five hours afterward I was sat at the altogether party of Tim'due south all-time friend in a place he referred to as "a Soviet bar." I knew that Tim's begetter had been a general in the armed services and that many people around town respected his family for his father'due south service. I knew that Tim could recite Shakespeare, considering he did, and that his female parent had left his male parent when he was very young and moved into her own apartment and that his father had died. I knew that he still lived with his mother and that surely, she'd love me and surely, I was welcome for dinner and to stay the nighttime. Oh, and by the way, my proper name is Tim.

The thing is that pocket-sized talk isn't a mode of talking to someone, it'south talking at them - there is no depth or purpose to it; it is similar an bad-mannered high school dance to the last 30 seconds of a bad vocal with no rhythm. It is tedious, and Russians tend to be anything but dull. After, as I walked along the street with an inebriated Tim, he began telling me almost his time in New York City before we were stopped by an older woman.

"Mother!" Tim cried.

"This is my mother."

The adult female glared at me and then grabbed Tim by his jacket.

"You fool, what are y'all doing walking around in this common cold. And y'all're drunkard!!" she cried at him, and then wrapped his scarf tighter effectually his cervix. Tim swayed a bit, before breaking loose to go vomit into the snowbank.

I looked at his mother, she at me.

I felt bad-mannered. I said, "Then, uh, the conditions, huh?"

She frowned, "F*ck the conditions."

Benjamin Davis , an American author living in Russia, explores various topics, from the pointless to the profound, through conversations with Russians. Last fourth dimension he explores what do Russians think of Trump. Next fourth dimension he volition explore gun ownership in Russian federation. If you take something to say or desire Benjamin to explore a detail topic, write united states in a comment section below or write u.s. on Facebook .

If using whatever of Russia Beyond'south content, partly or in full, ever provide an active hyperlink to the original material.

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Source: https://www.rbth.com/lifestyle/330182-small-talks-weather-russia

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