Small Talk Queen

 

“What can I bring you?” This is a question from many a thoughtful visitor coming to visit an expat. Suitcases poised and open, they expect answers like Jif Peanut Butter, Mac and Cheese, and strawberry Twizzlers. But I want the greeter at the Gap. I want the co-worker that says, “I can’t believe you’re eating Subway for lunch again.”  I want the cashier that asks me if I’m having a party since I’m buying so much beer.

 

What I want is a pointless exchange.

 

During my transatlantic move from the U.S. to Switzerland, I worried about losing photo albums. I worried about family paintings sinking to the bottom of the Atlantic. I worried about leaving my passport in the seat pocket of an airplane. I never worried about losing small talk.

 

But now, after having lived in Switzerland for almost two years, I am constantly longing for vapid, empty conversations. But poor little small talk, who I ignored for over 28 years, has broken-up with me, and at least for now, is joyfully gloating in its revenge.

 

Because when people talk in my German-speaking office in Zurich, there’s nothing small about it. Each word is at least fifteen letters long and none of them combine to ask me how my weekend was.  But without small talk, I’m awkward. Naked. My Americanness shines in all its glory when I begin a meeting with, “So I hear you’re off to Prague today,” instead of, “Here are the ads we created for your product.”

 

Saying hello and then immediately presenting work makes me cringe even after a year of doing it. I’d feel much more comfortable, before launching into business, if we at least found out what we all ate for lunch first.

 

During meetings between Herr Thisandthat and Frau Panozzo (wait, that’s me) I find myself getting a little nostalgic for my client meetings back in the States. Discussing a dog’s bout with fleas, I’ll think. Those were the days. Now I can’t even use first names, never mind anything else that might have an element of personality.

 

Yesterday at work, I’m caught off guard when I’m told to change a headline without being asked how my sore foot is doing first. Today, I’m concentrating on one thing—to think of the lack of niceties as normal.

 

After all, it isn’t that people aren’t nice. It’s just that they don’t care that I saw three sheep on my train ride to work. Or that I just came back from Greece where I rode a scooter for the first time. I come to work and work. It’s just not the same.

 

Office walls speak volumes about the kind of conversations that are inside them. The more personal the items are on the wall, the higher the level of personal exchange. In my Zurich office, the only things on the walls are charts and ads. However, in my former office in Richmond, VA, the walls weren’t walls—they were shrines. You knew whose kids played soccer, who had a cat, and who just got married without even asking. 

 

For the expatriate in Switzerland, small talk doesn’t just fail to exist in offices, but also in everyday life. Even my Swiss neighbor doesn’t waste any time with, “Boy, it’s hot out,” before launching into how Baden used to be a nice town but now it’s dangerous, trashy and filled with foreigners. Maybe she’d get through to me better if she commented about the constant rain before relating to me that I’m part of her world’s problems, but maybe weather isn’t part of the German vocabulary.

 

For me, the lack of small talk creates a big emptiness. Because now that I’m 5,000 miles from home, I realize inane interactions are an important part of life. I can prepare myself for the other things, like cravings for processed food by stuffing my suitcase full of Rice a Roni, but some things, like small talk, just can’t cross borders.

 

Thank goodness I can. Stepping off the plane on my yearly trip back to the States, I’ll give my family a smile.

 

“Hello, how are you,” I’ll say in my best small talk.

 

And then I’ll rush out the door in search of a meaningless conversation with a cashier. Then it’s on to a hair salon, where the queens of small talk masquerade as beauty professionals. Here, more than anywhere else, small talk is larger than life.

 

 

Chantal Panozzo, an American expat, is a copywriter and freelance journalist. Besides small talk, she also enjoys pointless e-mails. For additional musings on topics such as the lack of cheddar in the land of cheese visit her blog at http://onebigyodel.blogspot.com/. Ms. Panozzo's professional site can be found at http://www.chantalpanozzo.com.