Small Talk

So, how's it going?  Been enjoying the relatively mild temperatures for this time of year?  Looking forward to the World Cup?  Yeah, I'm making small talk, (or trying to as I'm hopeless at small talk) because this is another of those days when I could have sworn that I had an idea for a great post, but when it came to write it, I found that the idea, whatever it had been, had gone clear out of my head. It probably doesn't help that I've spent a lot of the day distracted by practical matters - like replacing the ceiling light switch in my bathroom without electrocuting myself.  (I pulled the right fuse this time and isolated the lighting circuit from the mains - many, many years ago I pulled the wrong one, didn't bother checking whether the lights were off and got quite a shock as I tried to replace that same switch.  My scream of pain and the crash as I fell off the chair I was standing on alarmed the neighbours so much that they came knocking on my door to check that I was OK).  So, until I think of something profound to post, we're left with small talk.  As I noted before, I'm terrible at small talk - I'm sure that's one of the reasons I had so much trouble in my former workplace.  My lack of interest in talking about soap operas, reality TV and the latest celebrity gossip, meant that I tended just to sit at my desk and get on with my paperwork when I was in the office, resulting in other people assuming I was aloof or anti-social.  (OK, I am anti-social, but this behaviour is never intended as some kind of personal slight - which it seemed to be taken as at work.  Just like my lack of interest in attending office Christmas - its nothing personal, I just don't like office parties of any kind).

Undoubtedly, my lack of facility for small talk is why I've never really engaged properly with social media.  My Facebook account is minimalist and exists only so that I can get communications from a couple of groups I belong to and to maintain the page for The Sleaze.  Likewise, my engagement with Twitter has slackened off completely - I follow a few interesting people, but rarely Tweet myself.  Mind you, if Elon Musk carries on with his mismanagement of Twitter, it could well die a death pretty soon.  (Apparently, he's now locked everyone out of Twitter HQ after most of the employees he hadn't already fired declined to accept new terms of employment).  There's no doubt that there's been a noticeable decline in activity in my Twitter timeline since Musk bought Twitter - and I don't follow that many people in the first place.  I have actually set up a Mastodon account, just in case Twitter goes down.  The trouble is that, lacking small talk skills, I find myself with nothing to Toot about.  Plus, nobody I follow on Twitter seems be on Mastodon.  All in all, a pointless exercise, not helped by the fact that Mastodon just doesn't feel as easy to use as Twitter.  Maybe another, easy to use, social media platform will rise to replace Twitter and everyone will migrate there, so I can lurk in the shadows there instead.  It's funny, but my lack of small talk even affects the way I use things like You Tube: despite informally following quite a few channels, I never comment, not even when they are running livestreams.  I'm content just to be an observer.  (Although, the other day I found myself talking back again to a guy in a video making a hash of trying to refurbish an old Triang locomotive.  I really must stop doing that).  Anyway, I think that I've exhausted my small talk - maybe I'll have remembered what Imeant to post about by tomorrow.