Small talk isn’t fake. It’s how strangers check whether it’s safe to say something real.

Small talk gets dismissed as empty when it is really a test with very low stakes. Two people trade something harmless about the weather or the bus and watch what comes back: whether you get listened to, whether they are warm, whether a real sentence is worth risking here. Skipping it does not make you more authentic, only harder to approach.

Give the next piece of nothing a real answer rather than the automatic one. Add one small true detail and see what they do with it. Most of your friendships started from something this boring.