Once you tune your radio in, you may find such occasions more exciting.

What I usually dislike about the small talk game is that it's often played by people who don't know each other well and/or by people who are so conformist as to be intrinsically boring. It's one thing to measure alliances among fascinating, dynamic people who are out in the world doing and being things. I would be more than happy to listen to say, Dan Savage, Janet Napolitano, and Max Tegmark make small talk. Ditto people in their 20s who were correspondingly less accomplished but who look likely to get to that kind of exciting impact level later in life.

But when the people sitting around a table are pushing papers in (say) the finance industry by day, watching cable TV in the evening, having vanilla sex at night, and going to see a national rock band and a national sports team over the weekend, what's the attraction? Or when the people have all just met each other, and are making their strategic decisions about dominance and alliances based on nothing subtler than who they find attractive and who shares their opinion about a piece of pop-culture or current-events trivia? Why should I care how the alliances ultimately break down among a group of people who, as individuals, hold no dramatic interest for me in the first place?

I get that small talk can be practically useful, so I have successfully made an effort to acquire a moderate level of skill at it. But I don't see why I'm supposed to enjoy it, whether I'm at a pub or a black-tie gala award ceremony.