How to Make Small Talk

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Making small talk can be hard—especially when you’re not sure whether you’re doing it well. But conversations are a central part of relationship-building.

In this first episode of How to Talk to People, we explore the psychological barriers to making good small talk and unravel the complexities of the mutual discomfort that comes with talking to people we don’t know well.

The social scientist Ty Tashiro and the hairstylists Erin Derosa and Mimi Craft help us understand what it means to integrate awkwardness into our pursuit of relationships.

This episode is hosted by Julie Beck, produced by Rebecca Rashid, and edited by Jocelyn Frank and Claudine Ebeid. Fact-check by Ena Alvarado. Engineering by Rob Smierciak.

Music by Tellsonic (“The Whistle Funk”), Ryan James Carr (“Botanist Boogie Breakdown”), and Arthur Benson (“Organized Chaos,” “She Is Whimsical”).

Talk to How to Talk to People—by “talk,” we mean write to us—at howtopodcast@theatlantic.com. To support this podcast, and get unlimited access to all of The Atlantic’s journalism, become a subscriber.

Click here to listen to additional seasons of The Atlantic’s How To series.

Mimi Craft: Okay, so we’ll sit here; we’ll start like usual and talk about what you want to do with your hair … because you need a haircut. (Laughter.)

Julie Beck: Does this moment feel awkward to you?

Ty Tashiro: It doesn’t. So I don’t know if it should.

Beck: Great news, great news.

Erin Derosa: If I’m in a five-minute conversation, I’m like, What am I gonna say next? What’s the next thing that I should ... did I already talk about the weather? I get real panicked.

Beck: I feel like I can chat with anybody for, like, five minutes. Right? And then if I run out of things to say in the middle, that’s my fear—because we are trapped here for the duration of this haircut.

Craft: We could stop talking, and I will try to put out a comfortable, chill vibe.

Tashiro: It’s, you know, pretty common. Someone might say something like: “Oh, there’s a really good vibe here.” And to me that is totally bewildering, how they discern that vibe within a few seconds.

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Beck: Hi. I’m Julie Beck, a senior editor at The Atlantic.

And I’m Rebecca Rashid, series.