The Small Talk Epidemic

Why We’re All So Lonely and How Aristotle Can Help

I’ve always struggled with people.

It comes as no surprise to those who know me foremost as a writer to learn that I’m an introvert: though I’ve mastered the art of conversation after many years of Manhattan rooftop events, I remain deeply allergic to small talk.

To voluntarily engage with someone outside of a professional context, I need to find the conversation more thought-provoking than the contents of the current book I’m reading—otherwise, I’d rather just spend my time with Mr. Dickens. While I am being somewhat facetious, I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this way: most of us hate small talk, yet we can’t seem to avoid it. In a plea to be understood, we repeat the same goobledygook about the weather over and over again—and are somehow lonelier than ever.

We have entered the small talk epidemic.

I’m not here to write about the impact of COVID or social media on our collective inability to carry on interesting conversations—though these are certainly contributing factors. Instead, I believe the answer to our loneliness cuts even deeper—our society has tricked us into thinking about friendship incorrectly.

The vast majority of Americans (93 percent) report having at least three close friends in their circles, with 61 percent of all respondents enjoying seven or more close friendships. Despite this optimistic statistic, however, 40 percent of Americans feel that they are “not as close to their friends as they would like,” signifying a gap in bonding and emotional vulnerability. This is the small talk epidemic in action: while we know how to talk to one another, we have lost the ability to find meaning in our conversations and in relationships as a whole. Simply put, we’ve lost sight of the purpose of friendship itself.

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In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle outlines three distinct sorts of friendships: friendship for the sake of utility, friendship for the sake of pleasure, and friendship based on virtue. The first is the friend you need something from, the second is the friend you might go shopping with, but only the third is meaningful and true. Based on mutual exchange and common interests, friendships based on utility and pleasure are not only “incidental” but also “easily dissolved.” In other words, these are not the sorts of friends who would throw over everything in the middle of the night to come and save you; they might party at your wedding but would not take care of your sick child. They are based on availability and convenience rather than a deeper bond.

Might we therefore assume that Americans are lonely because they fill their circles with friendships of utility and pleasure while foregoing those that offer true meaning? Many of us, after all, are prone to grow complacent in our personal lives: subsisting on political gossip or talk of the weather, our friendships never quite dig below the surface—they’re easy to maintain and don’t require real work.

But true friendship is more difficult to both come by and to maintain: perfect friendship, says Aristotle, requires some amount of “knowing thyself” and constantly working towards a higher good—it might occur between two people who share their knowledge of the universe with one another or between friends who have weathered life’s slings and arrows at each other's sides. It is the sort of friendship that subsists on abstract ideas rather than on shared activities—it is friendship that transcends physical presence.

Such friendship, however, requires both time and vulnerability—”eating salt together,” Aristotle tells us. Real friendship is based on emotional closeness and mutual goodwill—and while it is often more uncomfortable than glamorous, it ultimately gains the upper hand. These are the sorts of friendships that not only last for years on end but also provide meaning in our lives.

Conceptualizing friendship à la Aristotle and aiming towards a higher good might therefore do us well as a society. Because our culture values utility and pleasure above virtue, it is difficult for many of us to take a step back and to consider why we really hate small talk so much—so we just keep on doing it. But it is not the small talk itself that we despise but its reminder that we may lack deeper, more meaningful connections. And who can blame us? We’ve been taught that friends can help with networking or that they should have the same taste in wine and memes, but when was the last time that you were told to seek out a connection just to feel understood? Most of us crave those sorts of bonds, but because modern life trains us to build useful rather than genuine connections, few of us are bold enough to move beyond chit-chat. We fill our time with vapid conversations because we are told that we should all just be more open and social and receptive to small talk, but the reality is that most of us just want to cut to the chase and get deep. And because we simply don’t have time for more than a handful of friends, we cannot afford to lose so much of our valuable time immersed in “What did you do last Thursday?" We must strive towards Aristotle’s friendship of virtue.

So while poker buddies or Pilates friends serve a purpose of their own, we owe it to ourselves (and to Aristotle) to supplement the low-hanging fruit with the feeling of being genuinely understood. In a world of acquaintances, after all, the rarest luxury is a true friend—and like all rare luxuries, it is more than worth the pursuit.

So skip the small talk and get to it.

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