Thoughts on meaningless conversations?

Just like you, I hate it and find it irritating. I have a reputation at work for being rude because of that.

Most of the time I just don't initiate conversation but this brought some troubles in my workplace. .. I once told a very annoying colleague of mine (she was very young, immature and a bit too stupidly happy all the time if that makes sense ) to STOP harassing me with questions on how my week end went. I was very abrupt and straightforward that these questions annoyed me for a very rational reason: since we're never ever hanging out together why the heck does she want to know details of my life?? She could not reply anything. My other colleagues looked at me bewildered and then just laughed the incident off. I was absolutely serious though. I don't want to make small talks and pretend I'm interested in others people life. But my manager told me this was not socially acceptable and to force myself to make an effort and stop ignoring people I'm not interested in and at least try the small talk. He fave me a list of things I could go through to help (week end, weather, holidays, very generic work questions).

Now I do it to fit in but frankly I hate it and have a hard time pretending I actually enjoy those meaningless conversations. More often than not I'm still ignoring most of my colleagues and will never engage them to chat (even my N+2).

Outside of work though I'm upfront: with my flatmate, my hairdresser, my concierge etc....I told them to drop the blah blah and get straight to the point with me or even better, keep their mouth shut if talking is not necessary.

/r/intj Thread