Did we even use the word re-entry before last year? Maybe for war veterans. Or astronauts. Or people who live off-the-grid as some sort of experiment. Now, it’s as much a part of our vernacular as any word. And it’s because emerging is impacting everything...

A friend in the US recently forwarded me a public health announcement sent to her: “vaccinated people can resume normal activities.” The next message: “what does that even mean?” Followed by an exploding head emoji. After almost a year of zooming, masking, streaming and only seeing immediate family or flatmates IRL, the idea of getting back to normal is a stressful one. 

And one of the reasons is that we all have to deal with each other. And somehow reconnect, and that will involve A LOT of small talk. Small talk is no-one’s fault. It just happens. The irony of small talk is that we often stick with it because it feels comfortable and safe, but that’s precisely what’s wrong with it right now. According to Ester Perel (who made this point in a conversation with Jay Shetty in his podcast On Purpose), people are less interested in being on the surface. We want to skip to the more meaningful chat.  

She calls the way people feel about coming back to work and socialising again as “re-entry anxiety”.  Every time we see a person for the first time, there is a circularity in the questions that arise around the etiquette: Do we hug? Do we kiss? What can I ask? What should I avoid saying? It’s weird seeing people in their bodies after only watching them on zoom calls from the waist up for so many months. Part of the problem: “There is nowhere to hide,” says Perel. 

And then there is the question about what the chat is going to sound like. These are moments people are looking forward to and dreading at the same time. As my friend Georgie puts it: “I keep having the same conversations and it’s so strange, trying to tread carefully around what people have been through, because there are people who have lost so much… and they used to sit a few desks away and now I’m seeing them for the first time after so long and, well, we’re talking about the weather because we really don’t even know each other.” 

And then with people you are closer too, more intimate or searching questions can ve just as fraught: Where were you? How was it for you? Have you lost anyone? Is everybody okay? Did you miss things? Did you lose things? Did you stay sane? According to Georgie: “I honestly don’t even know what is okay to talk about. Some of these conversations are so big, should I even be having them in the work kitchen? But then people just offer up a few words and that feels worse. It’s like, don’t you want to talk about this huge thing that happened… where nothing happened but everything happened?” It’s confusing. 

All of which got me thinking about a great talk given by a radio producer in New York, which was aired on a recent episode of THIS AMERICAN LIFE. As with most great humour, there was so much wisdom in Starlee Kine’s words. Long before the pandemic, she decided to end small talk forever, by delivering a lecture (on stage) to anyone who would listen. Her strategy is called the Run Down, and it’s designed to turn the conversation you’re supposed to be having (tedious small talk) into conversations you want to be having (anything else). 

In a nutshell, you cling onto the most interesting part of the answer someone gives you at or in the (insert water cooler, bathroom, hall, elevator) and pursue it. It’s beautifully simple. And it works. As a hater of small talk myself, I tried it last week on a colleague. Here’s what happened: When the what-did-you-do-on-the-weekend chit chat started, a co-worker shared that she was gardening with her husband. Ordinarily, and obeying the rules of small talk, I would have followed up with, “what did you plant?” Yawn. Instead, I went with: “How did you guys meet?” A more controversial follow-up (that I was tempted to ask, but didn’t) would have been, “are you still in love?” 

We had a fascinating conversation about her life before this one.  I shared some tidbits of my own. It was enjoyable. It was revealing. It felt more meaningful. And that is where the rubber hits the road. When you want more meaning, sometimes you have to do whatever it takes to not talk about, well, gardening. Although digging deep? Now that’s a different story.