Forget Small Talk: Go Deep Instead | The Happiness Lab Podcast

Key Takeaway

Stop defaulting to 'How are you?' and 'Nice weather, right?' Research shows that deeper conversations—asking about someone's favorite season instead of commenting on today's rain, or exploring why they love their work instead of just what they do—make us significantly happier and more connected. The catch? You must go second question deep. Ask the surface question first (What do you do?), then immediately follow with something meaningful (Do you love it? What's your favorite part?). Most people will reciprocate your vulnerability with their own, creating the authentic connection we crave but rarely pursue.

Episode Overview

Mental health blogger Claire Eastham, who has struggled with social anxiety her entire life, conducted a month-long experiment to eliminate small talk from her conversations. Inspired by research from psychologist Nick Epley showing that deep conversations create more happiness and connection than superficial chitchat, Claire replaced weather talk and pleasantries with authentic, sometimes quirky questions. The results were transformative: people consistently responded positively, conversations became energizing rather than draining, and Claire discovered that vulnerability begets vulnerability.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Forget Small Talk: Go Deep Instead | The Happiness Lab Podcast from The Happiness Lab. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

I'm not a mysterious person. Like I really wish I was. I tried to be a cool girl. I can't even ask my name. I'm just like like like For as long as she can remember, author and mental health blogger Claire Eastam has found social situations to be surprisingly stressful. surprisingly stressful. surprisingly stressful. What if I say something stupid? What if I make a fool of myself? What if I'm boring? What if nobody wants to talk to me? It's always a lot of what if questions mentally.

And they are almost immediately accompanied by the emotional response, which is more anxiety, stress, fear. And then the physical symptoms such as pounding heart. Sometimes I might blush or sort of general feeling of unease. I tend to get like I like I want to bolt. And the conversational norm that makes Claire want to bolt the most is small talk. What do you think of the weather? What's going on? going on? going on? You staying busy? Man, I can't believe it's already Wednesday. How was the traffic on your drive?

Oh my god, I don't know if it's the same way you are in the UK. People love to talk about how they arrived at the venue. What road did you take? Like I have no idea, mate. I just got here. And don't get Claire started on this all too common conversation starter. How are you? you? you? It just feels like too light of a question to answer cuz you think I know the response is, "I'm fine. How are you?" you?" you?" But 50% of the time I'm not fine.

And I don't feel like answering that question inauthentically cuz it's a lie. Claire has long dreaded spending time in small talk conversational autopilot. know how it was supposed to last. I didn't know what I was supposed to say cuz I'm not interested in the weather. It's like it's raining again. Like uh-huh. We can't go anywhere with this unless you take us somewhere. And I'm stressed that you might not do that. And then the responsibility will fall on me. And I don't know what want apart from, you know, rain is wet.

As you can hear, Claire does have some not-so-small feelings about small talk. But I'm guessing that at least some of you listening right now can relate. Talking about the weather for the fifth time in a single afternoon, being asked how you're doing by someone who doesn't even listen to your response, superficial interactions like these can feel painful. They can cause you to second-guess if you're doing the whole social connection thing right, or if it's even worth it. Which leads me to today's happiness hot take. You ready?

Here it is. We should completely get rid of small talk. I'm talking zero tolerance. We need to fully rethink our usual approach to conversational autopilot. Why kill off small talk, you ask? Well, research shows that small talk has an opportunity cost that our minds don't realize. All those how's the weather's and is it Friday yet's cause us to miss out on a happier way that we could be spending our social interactions. A type of conversation that feels less stressful, more engaging, and way, way more fun.

Our minds are constantly telling us what to do to be happy. But what if our minds are wrong? What if our minds are lying to us, leading us away from what will really make us happy? The good news is that the science of the mind can point us all back in the right with me, Dr. Laurie Santos. I would sort of scan people, almost like the Terminator. You know, like looking for signs that this person doesn't like me, this person's bored. And I would view all social interactions as a success or a failure.

Growing up, author and blogger Claire Easton often thought of social situations as if she was going into battle. battle. battle. Take family get-togethers. Some kids love seeing their but Claire hated family celebrations so much that she'd regularly get stomach aches on the car ride over. She'd spend days before these upcoming events worried about conversations she'd be forced to endure. Oh, well, so and so got this promotion and so and so has got this many grades at school and I'm like, why are we having these chats?

But there was one family member that young Claire did feel comfortable around. Someone who seemed to detest the small talk just as much as she did. Her grandmother, Evelyn Easton. My grandma used to just sit in the kitchen chain-smoking cigarettes and sort of slagging the rest of the family off cuz she did not perform for anybody. Grandma Easton wore her conversational authenticity with pride. What do you really think of your Uncle Paul? Does that tell you what I think? He thinks he's flashy with his BMW.

Well, Well, Well, Claire's grandmother also found a way to make conversation more fun. Often by adding a bit of ridiculousness. She managed to convince me that she wrote The Wizard of Oz, but she set it in Wigan in the UK. I believed this. But she told me like half the story around this dining room table and I was like, this is amazing, Grandma. And she would encourage me. She's like, well, if you're going to write a story, like what would you write about and what characters would you have?

And and then she'd like, well, you should write it down and then next time I see you, you could tell me about it. Evelyn's off-the-wall questions and authentic curiosity helped young Claire feel more comfortable during family gatherings. But as Claire got older, safe social spaces like these felt rarer and rarer. and rarer. and rarer. When I have to perform, that's what I call it, the how are you, how did you get here, it's more stressful for me cuz I feel like I'm swallowing part of my personality to to fit in and then all I do is clock watch.

Like, how long do I have to stay? How long am I here for? Because I'm getting no enjoyment out of this and it's just making me feel more anxious. anxious. anxious. Whenever Claire was forced to be social, she found herself seeking out allies like Evelyn. like Evelyn. like Evelyn. I would just try and find those people who would make me feel like I could be myself really. myself really. myself really. Like who's not playing the game? You. Marvelous. Marvelous. Marvelous. But that got harder after Claire graduated and entered the working world.

Securing a position at one of the most prestigious publishing houses in London was huge for Claire's blossoming career. But it meant regularly facing the sorts of social battlegrounds that she feared the most. the most. the most. And I think there's a lot of people here I potentially have to perform to. I can't control this environment. I can't control what's going to happen next. To gain back a sense of control, Claire developed a whole host of not-so-healthy coping strategies. Behaviors like extreme people-pleasing. extreme people-pleasing. extreme people-pleasing.

My friend said this about me actually. She said, "You could get hit by a bus and you you know your arm would come off and you'd be like, 'Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I'll just pick it up and walk off.'" off.'" off.'" And avoiding potential small talk situations to the point of bladder discomfort. discomfort. discomfort. I would sometimes find it difficult to leave because I didn't want to have to walk past so many people's desks. Claire even found herself turning to the unhealthy standby that many of us use in social situations.

social situations. social situations. Alcohol was a massive crutch. It was a lot of sedating how I was feeling. But maladaptive coping strategies like these can only take a person so far. And one fateful day, Claire had what she likes to call a breakthrough breakdown. It was a big acquisitions meeting and I had what I now know was a panic attack. I didn't know what it was then. I thought it was a stroke. I thought, "Okay, so I'm going to die, but I really don't want to make a scene." For some bizarre reason, my brain told me that in order to get out of the situation, I should stand up very slowly for everyone and say in a posh voice, which I don't have, "I have the norovirus and I must leave at once." And then legged it out of the room.

room. room. Claire then continued legging it into the elevator and out of the building. And then miles away down the street. I did not stop running because something had snapped and I did not know what to do. So, yeah, there was no sort of sweeping that one under the rug. The next morning, Claire went to her doctor. She explained how anxious she'd been at work for months, and how sitting through that big meeting seemed to trigger a medical emergency. It was diagnosed in under 30 seconds.

Like, this is textbook social anxiety disorder, and you had a panic attack. And a big part of me didn't want to accept it. accept it. accept it. At first, Claire was pretty self-critical about her diagnosis. But with time, she developed more self-compassion. Eventually, she wanted to share that compassion with others who were going through similar mental health challenges. So, in 2013, she started a blog entitled We're All Mad Here, in which she shared her experiences with social anxiety, as well as lots of relatable advice. relatable advice.

relatable advice. Thousands upon thousands of subscribers signed up. The blog quickly turned into a book with the same name, which sold out of its first print in just 5 days. Claire went from denying her disorder to becoming an international expert. Social anxiety, a lot of it comes from repressing who you are. I think of social anxiety is you being like, "I'm in here. I'm in here. Let me out. Let me out. Why are you punishing me?" But Claire was about to enter a period where that sort of punishment, as she called it, would die down a lot.

Because for Claire, and pretty much every other human on the planet, social interaction as usual was about to undergo a massive change. change. change. In lockdown, the world shut down, and we The conversations that we had did tend to be more meaningful. It's funny, you wouldn't say, "How are you?" because it's just like, "I'm still stuck in my house. Same as yesterday. Nothing has changed. What else do you want to talk about?" You know, we had to be more be more be more creative. creative. creative.

Claire thrived in the unique moment that was 2020. In the midst of a global pandemic, people were feeling vulnerable. So, they tended to drop the usual pleasantries in order to connect a bit more deeply. Conversations were taking place on a computer screen, but Claire still found them to be more real, more like the ones she remembered with her grandmother Evelyn back in the day. Clare hoped that this shift in small talk would last once everybody went back into the real world. I'll never forget I went into a Costa coffee shop.

It was one of my first interactions and locked eyes with someone and she sort of like, "How are you? How's the weather?" blah blah blah. And I was just sort of like, "I can't remember what to say." And Clare wasn't alone. Many people reported a drop in their social skills post-COVID, which meant that our surface-level small talk interactions became even more strained than they were before. before. before. After months of more authentic-seeming conversations, Clare's return to the world of small talk felt like torture. And that is when Clare made the decision that there had to be another way.

I was sick of like being so horrible to myself about this. So, right, we're deliberately not going to do it now. I'm not going into another social situation thinking, "Make sure you seem normal for the first couple minutes and then you can be yourself." What if, Clare thought, I just got rid of small talk altogether? What if for one entire month I chose to start every new conversation by embodying my inner Evelyn and just getting straight into the weird, authentic stuff that I'd have more fun talking about?

I was like, "Let's do it. Let's do it. It's a fun experiment." And I I really did have faith that a lot of people would respond positively. How do conversations go when you force your partners to go deeper? When you completely reject the usual pleasantries for an entire month? Well, we'll find out when The Happiness Lab returns from the break. I went in totally nervous. I had never been sweating bullets before a talk as much as I had with this one. Cuz when you run a live demonstration in front of an audience, if it doesn't work for some reason, you are really sunk.

This is my friend and happiness lab regular, the psychologist Nick Epley. He's telling me about the first time he tried out what has now become one of his most famous social connection interventions. interventions. interventions. I was out in Connecticut speaking at a financial decision-making conference that I had invited to come and speak at. And we've got a room of maybe 50, 60 people sitting there. These are all high-level executives running pension funds. I mean, these are serious folks. I was really the only one not wearing a suit that day.

And they had not really anticipated that they'd be bringing somebody in to do touchy-feely sort of things, but that's what I was there to do. do. do. Nick studies the psychological effects of engaging in the sorts of social situations that we assume will make us feel awkward. In previous Happiness Lab episodes, Nick has shared his research on what happens when people strike up a conversation with a stranger or sincerely express gratitude to someone they haven't spoken to for a while or ask a random person on the street for help with a vulnerable situation.

In all of these cases, Nick finds that people's interactions feel much less awkward and much more enjoyable than they think. they think. they think. But Nick was also interested in what happens when we ratchet up the awkwardness of conversations even higher. higher. higher. What happens when we channel our inner Evelyn Eastons and chat with complete strangers about the most vulnerable topics possible? topics possible? topics possible? Nick was going to find out using the titans of the financial industry as his guinea pigs. guinea pigs. guinea pigs.

We start talking. I present some of my early research and then I tell them what we're going to do that in a minute we are going to put up some questions on the screen. I'm going to pair you up with another person and you're going to have a conversation with them about these questions. questions. questions. But the questions Nick put up on the screen weren't part of the usual small talk script. Things like where do you work or how is your commute? His questions included, what is one of the most embarrassing moments of your life?

If you could undo one of the mistakes you've made in life, what would it be and why? And can you describe the last time you cried in front of another person? person? person? I mean, this is not the most energetic room to begin with, but you could just feel the energy just drain right out. There was a guy sitting right in front of me. I will never forget it. As soon as I put up these questions, everybody kind of groaned, but he yelled out, "Oh, expletive, yeah." expletive, yeah." expletive, yeah." Oh, I don't know if I'm allowed You can swear.

"Oh, shit." is what he said. But Nick forged on. He began the exercise by having the executives make some predictions. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you think you're going to enjoy this vulnerable conversation? How connected will you feel to the person afterwards? And how awkward will you feel? feel? feel? After completing their surveys, the businessmen paired up and got chatting. Started a little bit slow at first, but then things just started to shift. Like the room just started to turn. It got lively.

By about 15 minutes, which is when I thought I was going to bring them back, they were going so strong in their conversations, I couldn't figure out how to get them back, right? Like I never faced this before. I'm saying, "All right." clapping my hands, "Time to come back." Eventually, I get the microphone and I got to do a countdown from five, which I learned from my kids' kindergarten teacher works, and then finally got them back, and then I had them report how the conversations had actually gone.

How awkward they actually were. How much they actually enjoyed the conversation. conversation. conversation. The gaps were stunning. The execs predicted that their conversations would feel mediocre at best, that they wouldn't enjoy the exercise all that much because they'd be feeling awkward the entire time. But after the exercise was complete, they reported that their actual conversations were far less awkward and far more delightful than they expected. To their absolute shock, ditching the usual small talk felt great. You didn't need to look at the data, you could feel it in the room.

These people who had started out very nervous, you could see them in their conversations that they had just come to life. I remember one couple over on the left one pair, they hugged at the end, which like these are not huggers, right? There was a guy up in the way back who was tearing up. Everybody was shaking hands when they were done. You didn't need to see the data. You could see the data right in front of you. Psychologists have known about the connective power of deep conversations like Nick's for some time.

Consider for example what's known as the fast friends procedure. procedure. procedure. This now famous technique was first developed back in the 90s by psychologists Art and Elaine Aron, a married couple who met and fell in love rather quickly when they were young researchers. An experience that got the pair interested in the factors that cause people to connect rapidly. Here's how the Aron's fast friends procedure works. Two strangers are paired together and asked to discuss a series of 36 deep questions with one another. another. another. The questions start off relatively casually.

Things like, would you like to be famous? Or if you could pick anyone in the world, who would you want as a dinner guest? dinner guest? dinner guest? But as conversation continues, the strangers start going even deeper. Asking each other questions more like the ones Nick used with his executives. Things like, how do you feel about your relationship with your mother? And if you died tonight, what would you most regret not having told someone? Right, so they start from pretty shallow and then they slowly escalate like a 747 jet taking off the runway slow and steady.

steady. steady. The Arons correctly hypothesized that this slow increase of mutual disclosure would cause people to feel more connected. But the researchers also assumed that other variables would matter for connection. Factors like how interested people were in doing the procedure, or how similar people's answers were to one another. And those things just did not at all. The only thing that mattered is what were you talking about. And at the end of all of those questions, the people who had talked about more meaningful things, they felt much, much closer.

Nick and his colleagues have found similar effects using the shorter and uh more extreme version of the fast friends procedure. procedure. procedure. We don't take the 747 off the runway approach. We're more like hopping to a helicopter, right? And you're going to go deep right away. And that looks like it works. I've had people say, "This was the best conversation I've ever had." I've had people in these sessions tell me that they told somebody something they have never told somebody else before. Across thousands of participants, both in laboratory settings and at real-life events like that financial conference, Nick's results are nearly always the same.

Deep conversations consistently make us feel happier and more connected than polite small talk does. What's interesting to me is that you can have those conversations almost any day that you want to if you choose to do it. But it seems like most of the time, we don't choose to do it. Nick says we often get stuck in the small talk mode that socially anxious blogger Claire Eastam detested so much. So we talk about current events. We talk about what you do for a living, right? But not do you love what you do for a living.

living. living. Is this your dream job? Small talk is all the outside stuff. Deep talk is going into where your heart sits, to where your beliefs sit, to where your values sit, to where what's really important to you sits. It means going deeper inside somebody's mind away from the superficial stuff to something deep. And you can fail at small talk if you don't feel up on current events or you don't know something about somebody's job or you didn't go out and see this movie that somebody else saw or you don't watch sports, right?

You can fail on that stuff cuz it's about news and things. I think it's actually harder to fail at deep talk. So these deep conversations make us feel really good, but how often are people having these deep conversations? Well, certainly not as often as they would want to. So at the end of these conversations, we ask people how deep was this conversation? They say really deep. So this is, you know, on a zero to 10 scale, we're talking like a seven, that's how deep this was.

And we ask them, "How deep are the conversations you typically have?" They say like a two, not very deep at all. And then we ask them, how deep are the conversations you would like to be having? having? having? And they say, well, maybe not quite as deep as that one on average. And we don't have to talk about the last time we cried in front of another person all the time. But they say more like a six, way deeper than the conversations they're typically having. And that's what's so interesting to me as a psychologist.

If these are the conversations you want to be having and you enjoy them a lot, why are you not having them? having them? having them? The first reason, Nick says, is that we have some unusually miscalibrated beliefs about how good we'll be at conversation generally. conversation generally. conversation generally. We tend to assume we'll be pretty bad at it, which is a result that as a psychologist, I find to be a very weird effect. Usually when researchers ask people how good they are at some desirable trait relative to the average person, they tend to overestimate that ability.

They show what social psychologists call the above-average effect. effect. effect. For example, one study found that around 70% of people think they're above average at performing their job, cooking, reading, and even taking care of personal hygiene. Of course, 70% of people being above average on all these traits is statistically impossible. statistically impossible. statistically impossible. But people don't seem to realize this, at least for most desirable traits. But when you ask the same people how good they are relative to the average person at conversation, you find the exact opposite effect.

opposite effect. opposite effect. We're above average on all these things, leadership ability and driving, which is another thing. Yes, the ability to get along well with others. Like we're all-stars at all these other things, but when it comes to talking to people, the thing we do so much of, people think they're terrible at. So why does conversation give us so much self-doubt? self-doubt? self-doubt? So part of it, I think, comes from failing to understand reciprocity. The norm of reciprocity is the dominant social behavioral norm on this planet.

So if I smile to you, what do you do back to me? You smile back. If I don't smile at you, what do you do to me? You don't smile. I say hi, do you say hi back to me, right? You want somebody to be friendly with you, be friendly with them first. But, people don't seem to appreciate the power of that norm. We don't seem to realize if you open up to somebody else in conversation first, they tend to open up to you in return.

You've signaled that you trust them, that you're interested in them, and they then take an interest in you. So much of our conversation pessimism stems from the fact that we don't realize that our partners will happily reciprocate the work that we put into trying to connect with them. We think we're paddling upstream a canoe with one paddle. And what we forget is there's somebody else in the boat with us, too, who is helping us. You don't have to drive the entire conversation. You can, if you'd like a conversation to be more interesting and meaningful, you can do that.

You have the power to do that if you try. But, what we don't appreciate is that when I open up to you, you're going to open back. We're going to be paddling on this canoe together, this conversation, together. And that's what people don't seem to realize. realize. realize. We also forget that how we steer a social interaction will affect how our partners react. Nick did a clever study that tested this. This was one where we sent people around the museum, and we asked them to just assess how friendly are other people at the museum today.

In one condition, Nick coached his subjects to be friendlier than they would normally be. They were told to smile at the other people they ran into, and to interact by saying hello whenever they could. they could. they could. In the other condition, they were just like detectives. They just went around, walked around, and just noticed how friendly people seemed to be. But, we didn't tell them to engage with other people. When they came back to us, they reported having a more positive walk when they were smiling and saying hello to people, but they also reported that people at the museum were friendlier that day that day that day than people in the control condition.

Simultaneously, that makes all the sense in the world and no sense in the world, right? They were not different people at the museum that day. You made people different. And you made them be friendlier by engaging with them first. It wasn't that there were friendlier people at the museum. It's that you were friendlier. You used the power you had to make people friendlier and you didn't recognize that. recognize that. recognize that. Another thing that people don't seem to realize about the norm of reciprocity is how it affects the grace people are willing to give us during social interactions.

interactions. interactions. When we're about to go deep with someone new, we often start to hear what Nick likes to call the cringe voice. That voice inside our head that cringes as soon as it thinks of all the things that could go wrong when we start to engage in this new conversation. But the cringe voice doesn't take into account reciprocity norms. It forgets that if we speak to someone openly and authentically, that person tends to respond with kindness, not with judgment. All of these findings have convinced Nick that it's time for all of us to ditch the usual small talk in favor of deeper conversations.

He outlines his advice for how to do this in his excellent new book, A Little More Social: How Small Choices Create Unexpected Happiness, Health, and Connection. Connection. Connection. Many of Nick's tips involve finding ways to go deeper in conversation a little more quickly. Often, much more quickly than we assume is appropriate. There are places where small talk works and the place where small talk works is often the first question. The first thing you ask somebody about. What is it you do for a living? Where is it you live?

What do you like to do? Right? It's often a a good launch pad. It's a good starting point to engage with somebody and it also allows you to signal that, you know, you're not a crazy person. It allows you to show some interest. But you can just get to deep, meaningful stuff much faster than you think. And so, if you would like to have more deep, meaningful, better conversations in your life, you can choose to do it. And it's often on that second question. You can do it in two steps, I think, usually.

So, what is it you do for a living? Do you love what you do for a living? What was your favorite part about it? What did you love the most about it? You find out kind of what people are about, and then you find out why. Have your conversations gotten better since choosing to go deeper? Absolutely. For one thing, I've learned that having these deeper conversations is a lot about the mindset that you take when you approach somebody else. If you start taking an interest in people, recognizing that most people are kind and they're decent, and they're interesting, they know things you don't, your whole world starts to look different.

You see strangers sitting on the bus with you who are not like these scary creepy people, but these are fellow human beings who have interesting things to tell you. And suddenly the world looks friendlier and nicer and kinder. And I've talked to so many people who have talked to people a lot, who go through the same experience. It just changes the way you see people. You learn very quickly you can get to know people. And your conversations are just much better. Your connections with people are just much better.

You can share things with people that maybe you never would have before. And I do this all the time. I've lost, when it comes to deep conversation, I've lost the cringe voice. I still have it anymore. anymore. anymore. Conversations and connections that feel much better, and fully turning off that cringe voice that makes us feel terrible in social interactions, I got to admit, all that sounds pretty good. But Nick is a world expert on the science of connection. It makes sense that he can pull off conversation without his cringe voice butting in.

But would the same deep talk strategy work for someone who's been clinically diagnosed with an exceptionally loud cringe voice? You're loser. You're weird. Could committing to deep conversation for an entire month work for a person who spent decades being mortally terrified of small talk? It was like, you've got 18 more days, Claire. You said you would do this, so we're going to finish it. Blogger Claire Eastam will return to tell us how her small talk ditching experiment went when the Happiness Lab returns from the break.

When we last left mental health blogger Clare Easton, she'd had an epiphany. Feeling tired of the pressure she regularly put on herself during social interactions, Clare decided to embark on an experiment. For one entire month, she would replace all small talk with the sort of weirder, more authentic questions that would make her grandmother Evelyn proud. It's going to be selfish, something I'm interested in genuinely. If they ask me a small talk question, I will twist it without being rude. Her experiment began on the night of a friend's art show, exactly the kind of social situation that Clare would usually dread.

usually dread. usually dread. Cuz it was an art show, everyone was going in with, "What do you think of the art?" Obviously. And I don't know anything about art. Ignoring her usual cringe voice, Clare launched into her first attempt to go a little deeper. little deeper. little deeper. This woman said to me, "What do you think of the art?" And I said, "Do you remember your art teacher from school? Like, I can remember mine." And then she suddenly just switched. The woman lit up as she talked about what she remembered from her elementary school art class.

She then asked Clare about her own experiences. They laughed with one another as the conversation flowed. It was the first time that Clare had actually had fun at a social event. As she walked home from that art show, she realized that day one of her experiment had been a huge success. We're going to keep doing it because it's lighting us up. In the weeks that followed, Clare found ways to shift all manner of shallow conversations into topics that went a bit deeper. When a barista asked her how she was enjoying the weather, she asked him what his favorite season was and why.

Or take the guy who asked Clare what she'd been watching on TV lately. He's talking about Killing Eve, the TV show, and then I was like, "If you could, you know, kill someone and you could pretty much get away with it, like what would be the plan?" And he was just like, "I've got a complete plan. I know what I would do." She's like, "First of all, you need to get barrels of acid." And they explained how he would get said acid, cuz he's like, "Nobody know crime." crime." crime." It's like, "And it's the stomach that's the hardest bit to get rid of.

So, you need to be able to like chop it up." It was really graphic, and I was like, "Wow." "Wow." "Wow." Um yeah. Wow. But, potential ex-murderer interactions aside, Clare deeply enjoyed just how positively other people reacted when she shut down the usual shallow conversation. conversation. conversation. God, the amount of people who said to me, "Oh, I don't like small talk either. This is brilliant. This is so refreshing." refreshing." refreshing." Or take Tracy, the middle-aged woman Clare decided to approach at her local cafe. cafe. cafe.

I'd seen her quite a few times, and I was like, "She's really cool. She's really confident." So, I never really approached her, but because it was for science, dammit. science, dammit. science, dammit. Clare started by asking Tracy what she did for exercise. Tracy explained that she thought of herself as a member of the 5:00 a.m. club, those people who go for walks super early in the morning, even when it's still dark out. like, "So, like, "So, like, "So, how do you keep yourself safe?" And she's like, "Carry a rock." I'm like, "You being serious?" She's like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah." And I let people see that I'm carrying this rock, like a brick.

brick. brick. And then from there, she sort of told me how somebody had to try to get her in a van van van when she was in her 30s, and she beat the out of him. And uh And uh And uh I was I was I was just intrigued, and I ended up being honest with her about I'm actually doing this experiment with small talk. And she said, "I love it." And then explained that I'm quite a socially anxious person. She said, "I'm not getting that vibe at all, and I love having these kind of conversations." And that wouldn't be the last conversation that Clare had with Tracy.

We met up a couple days later, and talked for 2 hours, like non-stop over coffee about everything from star signs to travel to intergalactic stuff to past lives to spirituality to films. It was just very childlike. You know, when you have a have a have a sleepover when you're a teenager and you just like talk anything. And it's like addictive. It was uh it was amazing. Clare admits that not all her attempts at deep conversations went as well as the one with Tracy. Not everyone's going to like you, which is a really basic thing to say, but it took me a really long time to accept that one.

Not everybody's going to like you, and that's okay. It's about finding one person you connect with in the room. I'll take that. Clare has also learned not to beat herself up when a conversation doesn't go as well as she expected. It's all right. You don't have to continue talking to this person. You can politely leave. Now, I just think, "Oh, fair enough." And then on to the next. Clare's experiment also taught her the same insight that psychologist Nick Epley shared earlier, that she was more in control of her everyday interactions than she thought.

That she wasn't the only one paddling that conversational canoe. That she had the agency to choose where the discussion went. To steer interactions towards topics that felt more authentic. more authentic. more authentic. It made it fun again. And then for someone as shy as I see, it can feel like they're a bit of a minefield. And this just made it fun. Indeed, Clare had so much fun with her experiment that she wanted to try out some of her favorite deep questions with yours truly. yours truly.

yours truly. Because I'm getting a good vibe with you. you. you. Oh, that's good. If you could have any mythological creature as a pet, what would you go for? for? for? Oh, very interesting. Um most of them are not domesticated, so they're going to like make a mess of the house and you know, poop and pee on the floor and stuff like that. Yeah, so I might go for like a small one. Like a fairy. Like a fairy, yeah. I feel like a fairy you could throw a diaper on her and it'd all right.

Yeah. What's yours? See, I have absolutely no self-control, so dragon, obviously. And just deal with the chaos that comes with that and burn places to the ground. [gasps] [gasps] [gasps] And straight away, that tells them more about your personality, and it tells you more about mine. Yes. Like you're a very So, you're very thoughtful, practical. You're a chaos agent who's totally fine with burning things down in her own home. Absolutely no common sense. Yes. Another of Clare's favorite get-to-know-you questions is this. As a kid, did you ever have a crush on a cartoon character?

cartoon character? cartoon character? Uh Robin Hood, the Disney Me, too. The fox. Yes, same. Same. You're only the first person who said that. Most people look at me like No, no, I'm totally Come on. He can fight, and he's cheeky, and and and He's the one for me if I could change species. species. species. And secretly, I think my husband looks a little bit like the fox from Robin Hood. Yeah. I have to admit, chatting with Clare about all these weird questions was really fun. And not just because I got to talk about my cartoon crush.

I genuinely felt like those inquiries made us feel closer. Like they could be part of some new fast friends procedure updated for the 21st century. In fact, I liked Clare's questions so much that I decided to try some of them out with the deep talk expert himself. These are not my approved questions. No, no, no, they're But maybe maybe you'll put them in. Some of them are pretty good. Here This was one that I thought was very diagnostic. If you could have one mythological creature as a pet, which creature would you pick?

Oh my goodness. I would like the horse with the wings. That's Pegasus, right? That's what my husband said. Yeah, who doesn't want to fly? Are you kidding me? Horse is awesome. Flying horse, that's like, you know, an exponential increase in awesomeness of a horse. Totally. horse. Totally. horse. Totally. When I answered, I hadn't thought of a horse. I was just thinking like most mythological creatures are like not domesticated. domesticated. domesticated. Like Like I was like I was want like a small one, like a fairy. Like you put like a diaper on it.

Like yeah, okay. I've known Nick for a long time, but Claire's questions helped me realize just how much I didn't know about Nick. All the personal things we hadn't yet had a chance to talk about. What was your art teacher like in school? Did you like art as a subject? No, I hated art. However, the best class I have ever taken in my entire life was a pottery class when I was in high school. The most consistently fun every day, the one I always looked forward to.

It was the one I remember from high school really enjoying a lot. Do you do pottery now? You know, I don't. I don't. But I do do the woodworking equivalent of it, which is lathe. I I do I do lathe work. I love that feeling. that feeling. that feeling. And so that has stuck with me. Claire says that she often has a similar experience when going deeper with friends. friends. friends. And this sounds a bit woo-woo, but it felt like magic. We all know that we're all in our own heads, our own narratives.

Not that we mean to be self-centered, it's just that's what we're focused on, right? Our own experience, our own perception of reality. So, when you suddenly have that light-up moment with someone, it feels like magic to me. I just keep saying lights me up, cuz it it it really does. does. does. I asked Claire to share some final advice about bringing the light of deep conversation into our lives. Start small. People will find their own feet. The most important thing is to start. Someone says, "How are you?" Just say, "Do you know what?

I've just finished reading this book or I've just finished watching this thing." It's a gentle way to maneuver it. You can even own it. Depends on how brave you are. You could own it and say, "I'm not going to small talk. Do you mind if I ask you about this instead?" And you don't have to do it for 28 days. You could just do it for a day. See what it does to your mood. See if it raises your vibration a little bit. bit. bit. So, that is today's happiness heart take.

We all need to ditch the small talk and go a little deeper. I know, I know, your cringe voice is probably saying that it'll be awkward or that people will think you're weird if you get too vulnerable or if you say reveal that you've long thought that your husband looks like a cartoon fox character. Believe me, I get it. But the science shows that our conversations and connections can feel much, much better if we channel our inner Evgeny Kissin and commit to going a bit deeper.

And if you need some ideas, Nick was kind enough to let me share his full list of deep questions. You can check them out at drlaurysantos.com/deepquestions. at drlaurysantos.com/deepquestions. at drlaurysantos.com/deepquestions. That's drlaurysantos.com/deepquestions. And if you want to learn even more tips for connecting deeply, be sure to check out Nick's new book, A Little More Social, which is on sale now. Next week we'll continue our happiness hot takes with one that's specifically for the guys in the audience. We'll see why dudes today need more bromances. Like if I meet a dude and I like him and I want to sort of get to know him, I'm never going to say, whereas my wife might.

You want to come play coffee sometime? A guy is never going to do that. that. that. That's next week on The Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos.