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Appreciation post: a guy at the DMV in Reno went off about small talk, now I can't decide if he was right
I was waiting at the DMV on Wells Ave in Reno about two weeks ago, ticket number 47, and this older guy in a camo jacket next to me started going off about how saying "how are you" is basically a trap and people never want the real answer. He told me, "I quit asking three years ago and my life got quieter, not lonelier." Half of me thinks he's onto something, because I've had plenty of moments where somebody asks how I'm doing in line at the store and I give the fake "good, you?" and we both just stand there. The other half thinks he's wrong, because that little exchange is how you find out someone's day is going bad and maybe you let them go ahead of you. I still think about it at least once a day now, which feels dumb for a DMV chat. So here's the debate for you all: is small talk a real kindness or just a script we all hate? And if you did stop asking, did anything actually change or did it just get weird?
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