Yes...Another Rant Book (OLD discontinued)

Pointless Conversation

Small talk. I swear it's the bane of my existence. I hate small talk. It's stupid, pointless, and takes the conversation nowhere. It usually happens with relatives that come over. They ask the same stupid-ass questions and I give them the same answer. It goes like this:

"How are you?"

"Good."

"How's school?"

"Good."

"You excited for college?"

"Yes."

Those same questions appear every single time. They don't move the conversation forward...ever. If you don't have anything interesting to talk about, don't talk to me at all! That may make me sound like a total bitch, but I really don't give a shit. I'm an introvert. Introverts have anti-social days and we hate small talk. 

Adults always approach me with these questions because I'm a teenager. Apparently we teenagers are exotic creatures from Venus who need to be bombarded with small talk questions. Why exactly? You wanna know how to approach a teenager? Don't. That's how. Unless you're an extremely interesting adult who can somehow relate to a teenager, chances are we don't wanna talk to you! That's just how it is. We can't relate to adults. It's nobody's fault. We just can't. You really think we wanna talk to people who are always like "oh you know, teenagers. In my day, we didn't have that fancy technology! You kids nowadays are all about the Facespace and Instatwitter!"

Adults usually don't get me. Apparently I'm a snippy ass because I don't wanna talk about school every five minutes. The worst is when they ask the obvious questions.

*Me sitting on my computer*

"Oh so you're on the computer?"

No, this is an illusion. I'm playing with your mind to make you think I'm on the computer, when in reality I'm doing something completely different! No shit Sherlock! Yes, I'm on the computer. You really had to ask that? You're not making conversation by stating the obvious. Why the hell do adults wanna talk to teenagers anyway? We make it obvious we don't wanna talk to them. If I'm forty-something years old, I'll wanna talk to other forty-year-olds, not teenagers. When I'm that age, I'll stay as far away from teenagers as possible. 

Then when we actually make an effort, we actually try talking to them. They either have no idea what the hell we're talking about, or they start going on about how they didn't have what we have today. 

"Yeah, Bob got a new tablet."

"What's a tablet?"

*explains what it is*

"Oh, when I was your age, we just played outside! We didn't have all these fancy tablets and whatnot. In my day, we wrote letters to people!"

First off, I live in Goddamn Arizona. Nobody wants to go outside in Arizona, unless they want third-degree burns and a nice case of heatstroke. Then if you're geeky like me, they'll start asking other stupid questions.

"Why don't you hang out with friends?"

"Because...video games."

"When I was in high school, I hung out with my friends all the time! We did this, this, and this." *reminisces on the glory days*

Yes, thank you for making me feel like a loser for never doing anything. I like talking about things that interest both parties. Then we can carry on a nice conversation and not question each other. I want my conversations to have some kind of point. Questions like "how's your day?" and "how are you?" are immediate turn-offs. "How are you" is too broad. What the hell do I say? I'm gonna say I'm good, because if I say anything different they'll start hounding me. "Why? What's wrong? You feeling okay?" making way for more conversation I don't wish to participate in.

I really hate when they ask about school. I'll say "good" to "how's school" because it shuts down any conversation about school. I hate school. Almost every teenager on the planet hates school. What makes you think we want to talk about it? I go there five days a week, seven hours a day. I cherish any minute I'm not there, and now you expect me to talk about it? No thanks, honey. I'll be playing house with the little kids now, because even that's more interesting.