For years, I thought something was wrong with me. Every networking event left me needing a day to recover. Every party where I had to make conversation with strangers felt like running a marathon in dress shoes. While everyone else seemed to float effortlessly through “how about this weather” and “what do you do,” I was counting the minutes until I could leave.
I tried to fix it. I read books about conversation skills. I practiced small talk topics in my head before events. I even made myself flashcards with questions to ask people. Nothing worked. The exhaustion remained, and so did the creeping shame that I was somehow broken—that my inability to enjoy casual chitchat meant I was antisocial, arrogant, or just plain rude.
Then I stumbled across some research that changed everything. It wasn’t about being better at small talk. It was about understanding why my brain treats it like a threat.
Read more: Introverts Are Asking, Then Answering, All The “Stupid Questions” They’re Tired Of Hearing
My brain processes conversation completely differently
Here’s what nobody told me: not everyone’s brain handles social interaction the same way. For some people, casual conversation is genuinely low-effort. Their brains can engage in autopilot mode, tossing out pleasantries without much cognitive load. For others—and I’m firmly in this camp—every social interaction requires full engagement.
Neuroscience research shows that introverted brains have higher baseline levels of activity in areas associated with planning and problem-solving. Translation? My brain is working overtime during conversations that other people handle on cruise control.
When someone asks me about the weather, my brain doesn’t just grab a pre-packaged response. It starts analyzing. What do they actually want from this exchange? Is there a right answer? What’s the appropriate length for this response? Should I ask something back? What if I pick the wrong topic? All of this happens in milliseconds, invisibly, exhaustingly.
The energy equation I never understood
I used to think tiredness was tiredness. You do a thing, you get tired, you rest, you recover. But social exhaustion doesn’t work that way for everyone.
Small talk costs me more energy than deep conversation does. That sounds backwards, but hear me out. When I’m having a real conversation—discussing ideas, sharing experiences, solving problems—I’m energized. Time disappears. I leave feeling connected and alive.
But thirty minutes of party chitchat? I’m wrecked. I need silence, solitude, and probably a nap. For years, I interpreted this as evidence that I didn’t like people. The truth is simpler and stranger: my brain finds surface interaction harder than depth.
Psychology research on introversion explains this phenomenon. Introverted brains respond more strongly to dopamine, meaning we get overstimulated faster. Small talk provides stimulation without reward—all the cognitive effort of conversation without the payoff of genuine connection. It’s like running on a treadmill that never lets you stop.
The script problem that wore me out
Small talk operates on scripts. “How are you?” “Good, and you?” “Can’t complain!” These exchanges are social rituals, not actual information transfer. Most people learn these scripts naturally and deploy them without thinking.
I never quite learned them. Or rather, I learned them intellectually without them becoming automatic. Every scripted exchange required conscious effort—retrieving the right response, delivering it with appropriate timing, monitoring the other person’s reaction to make sure I’d done it correctly.
Imagine if every time you walked, you had to consciously think about each muscle movement. Left foot, right foot, balance, swing arms, don’t fall. That’s what small talk feels like to people whose brains never automated the social scripts. Every exchange that comes naturally to others costs us cognitive resources.
The worst part? I thought everyone found it this hard and was just better at hiding it. Learning that neurotypical brains genuinely find this easy was both validating and infuriating.
Why I kept calling myself shy (and why I was wrong)
For most of my life, I labeled myself as shy. Shy seemed like the obvious explanation for why I avoided parties, dreaded networking, and always needed recovery time after social events.
But shyness is about fear. It’s anxiety about judgment, worry about saying the wrong thing, nervousness about how you’re being perceived. And while I’ve had those feelings, they weren’t the core of my problem.
The core was exhaustion, not fear. I could perform perfectly well at social events. I could be charming, funny, engaged. I just couldn’t sustain it without paying a massive energy tax. Shyness implies you want to participate but fear holds you back. My situation was different: I could participate fine, but the cost wasn’t worth it.
Understanding this distinction mattered. Shyness is something to potentially overcome. Introversion is something to accommodate. I’d been trying to overcome a personality trait as if it were a disorder, and wondering why I kept failing.
The masking I didn’t know I was doing
There’s this concept in neurodivergent communities called masking—hiding your natural tendencies to fit in with social expectations. I’d been doing it my whole life without having a name for it.
Every party, every meeting, every casual encounter in the office kitchen: I was performing a version of myself designed for social acceptability. Nodding at the right moments. Laughing at jokes I didn’t find funny. Asking follow-up questions I didn’t care about the answers to. The performance was convincing. Nobody knew I was acting.
But acting is work. Every masked interaction was a tiny withdrawal from an energy account that had limited deposits. By the end of a workday full of brief social encounters, I was overdrawn. Weekends became recovery periods, not leisure time.
The research on social masking shows I’m not alone. Millions of people—particularly introverts, highly sensitive people, and neurodivergent individuals—spend enormous energy appearing “normal” in social situations. The exhaustion is real even when the performance is flawless.
What I actually needed from conversation
Here’s what I finally understood: I don’t dislike people or even talking to people. I dislike a specific type of talking—the performative, surface-level, exchange-of-pleasantries kind that seems to be most of what passes for social interaction.
What I actually want from conversation is depth. Tell me about your weird hobby. Share your unpopular opinion. Explain why you’re worried about something. Let’s skip the part where we establish that the weather exists and get to the part where we actually learn something about each other.
When I’m in those conversations, I’m not tired. I’m energized. Time passes without me noticing. I leave wanting more, not less. The difference isn’t about people or talking—it’s about content.
Once I realized this, everything shifted. I stopped trying to get better at small talk and started arranging my life around the kinds of conversations that didn’t drain me.
How I stopped apologizing for my limits
The game-changer wasn’t learning to tolerate small talk better. It was giving myself permission to avoid it without shame.
I started declining events I knew would be small-talk heavy. I stopped accepting every invitation out of obligation. When I did attend social functions, I gave myself permission to leave early without manufacturing elaborate excuses.
I also got more strategic. Instead of working a room at parties, I’d find one interesting person and have an actual conversation. Instead of networking events, I’d suggest coffee one-on-one. Instead of group hangs, I’d choose activities where the interaction was structured around doing something together rather than just talking.
Research on social energy management supports this approach. The goal isn’t to never interact with people—it’s to spend your limited social energy on interactions that actually nourish you.
The relationships that changed after I understood this
Once I stopped blaming myself for finding small talk exhausting, something unexpected happened: my relationships improved.
With friends, I stopped feeling guilty for not wanting to chat on the phone just to catch up. I’d text instead, or suggest activities that didn’t center on conversation. My friends didn’t love me less because we weren’t constantly talking. They loved me the same, just with fewer forced phone calls.
At work, I stopped pretending to enjoy the morning chitchat ritual. I’d smile, wave, and head to my desk without performing extended pleasantries. Some colleagues probably thought I was less friendly. But I had more energy for the meetings that actually mattered, which made me better at my job.
And with new people, I started being honest upfront. “I’m not great at small talk, but I love actual conversations.” This filtered out people who’d find me exhausting and attracted people who felt the same way I did. Win-win.
What I wish I’d known twenty years ago
If I could go back and tell my younger self one thing, it would be this: you’re not broken, and you don’t need to be fixed. Your brain works differently, and that’s okay. Stop trying to force yourself into a social mold that doesn’t fit.
Small talk drains you because your brain processes it inefficiently. Not because you’re rude, antisocial, or bad at people. The same brain that struggles with chitchat excels at deep thinking, meaningful connection, and sustained focus. Those aren’t consolation prizes—they’re genuine strengths.
You don’t have to love every kind of social interaction to be a good person. You don’t have to find parties fun or networking energizing. You just have to find your own way of connecting with people, and stop apologizing for the ways that don’t work for you.
The exhaustion I felt after small talk wasn’t a personality flaw. It was information. My brain was telling me something important about what kinds of interaction work for me and what kinds don’t.
Learning to listen to that information—instead of overriding it with shame and shoulds—was the most valuable social skill I ever developed. Not how to be better at small talk, but how to stop forcing myself to do it when I didn’t have to.
Some people genuinely enjoy chatting about the weather. I’m not one of them, and I’ve finally stopped pretending otherwise. The relief is enormous. And ironically, now that I’m not exhausting myself with forced pleasantries, I have more energy for the conversations that actually matter.
