There are many, many, many things that I utterly despise about being alive. One of the worst is the rigmarole of having a conversation. Don’t get me wrong. Having a nice chitty-chat and a catch up is all fine and dandy. But those conversations where you do not actually get to the bottom of anything — what a pain in the arse!

It is called “small talk”. Small Talk used to be the name of a teatime programme on BBC One. Ronnie Corbett would sit there in his cardigan and point and laugh at all the gullible little children saying naive things. The poor children who starred in the show probably got bullied for the rest of their school life.

Much hilarity was caused by these kids talking about things that they don’t really about (and even then, it’s only because their parents did not have the sense to tell them the truth in the first place). Yet, the things these children said still made more sense than approximately 100% of actual “small talk” conversations that I have had.

I mean, what a waste of breath, power, energy and brains. I bet you if all the input used to make small talk was diverted and put to a better use, fusion power would have actually been invented instead of still being a pipe dream.

The thing that I really hate about small talk is the fact that I am not the only person who seems to hate it. In fact, I bet you that everyone hates it! It is an acute pain in the arse, yet we all subject ourselves to it.

What really gets me is the way people ask, “How are you?”, even though they could not give two hoots how you actually are. As such, you can never actually explain how you actually are (which, let us face it, is shit, complete with long-winded tale of woe).

If you do say how you actually are, the person who asked how you were in the first place will probably just turn around (if they are actually still in the room and haven’t fallen asleep) and say, “What makes you think I care?! Don’t take it out on me.” And if I retort, “Well, you did ask me how I was,” they would look at me as if I was the mental!

Even if they do not, I can assure you that they did not take in “how I am”. People just ask “How are you?” as a way of avoiding an uneasy silence. It is probably supposed to be polite, but I would rather have the uneasy silence, because at least that recognises the truth of the matter: you don’t care about me, and I don’t care about you. So don’t ask me how I am.

I am not even all that fussy about small talk. Questions like “How are you?”, “Nice day, isn’t it?” and “Have you got any plans for the weekend?” may not lead to any world-changing answers, but at least they form proper, meaningful sentences. Because there is another form of small talk which I consider to be little more than an advanced form of grunting.

“All right?”

That is the most innocuous one. Indeed, I often find myself using it. But even this is an absolute minefield. James O’Malley summed up the dilemma excellently:

I really hate it when people greet me by saying “Alright?”, as I can never figure out what they’re asking, nor how to respond. Are they basically saying “Hello”, or are they asking “How are you?”? If you misinterpret the question you risk looking like an idiot.

So, if somebody greets me by saying “Alright?”, I reply simply: “All right (?)”, which I say with an ambiguous monotone so that you can’t tell if I’m asking a question or not. This is because, to be honest, I don’t know if I’m asking a question or not, because I don’t know if I’m answering a question or not. “How’s it going?” provides similar confusion.

But those are benign compared to something like “What’s happening?” This sounds like it is less ambiguous than “All right?”, but it is not. If anything, it is even more confusing. I mean, think about it. The person who is asking me the question already knows what is happening — I am having a terrible conversation with him. Once again, there is no sensible answer to this.

But the absolute top of the tree has to be this: “What are you saying to it?” I mean, what the fuck is that? What am I saying to what? I’m not saying anything to any one, or any thing. A nonsensical question. Sometimes I reply, “Hello, It! Ho ho.” But that seldom raises a titter. Therefore, the only viable response is: “Nrargh.”

I am sure I have had actual conversations which have gone like this:

“All right?”
“All right (?)”
“What’s happening?”
“Errm. Yes.”
“What are you saying to it?”
“Nrargh.” [runs away]

Another one to add to the list: “What’s the craic?” The craic with what? I have not set foot in Ireland for about a decade. The only craic I have is my arse craic, and I doubt you want to know about that.

All of this explains why I fully support James O’Malley’s campaign to insert “What are the haps?” into every conversation. You know it has to be done.