Street Smarts
Small talk and the flavours of the neighbourhood
My parents are a popular pair in what my Mom calls their little village.
Their dentist brought them back a little something from her vacation, their mechanic asks about the family, and a neighbour popped by last week with some peameal bacon he’d picked up at the St. Lawrence Market that he thought they’d like.
Here in Mississauga, one of Canada’s largest cities, there’s a lot of kindness to go around in my parents’ world.
It’s here because it’s what my parents offer to just about everyone they meet. I spent my teen years mortified, willing my mother to take the groceries and leave rather than chat with the cashier about the weather, kids and inevitably brag about my latest accomplishment.
Or my Dad, leaning back in his chair at the restaurant to trade stories about a shared love of garlic and shrimp with our waiter, which then led to stories about kids and something about one of us doing something Dad thought was pretty amazing.
Sitting across from him, all I could do was awkwardly smile and pretend to study the menu.
Decades later, they’re still at it, and I’m still a little embarrassed, but not so embarrassed that I don’t practice it myself.
I exchange pleasantries with cashiers, exchange food tips with waiters and the concierge in my daughter’s apartment building knows me.
A quarter century ago the social scientist Robert Putnam said all these little interactions were an essential part of what he called social capital, which is the combination of human networks, values, behavioural norms, and goodwill that we need for society to function.
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Putnam said most of us have two types of personal interactions: we form strong ties with a small group of family and friends, which he called bonding social capital, and we have weaker ties with a lot of other people, such as co-workers, neighbours, dentists, mechanics, cashiers and building concierges.
He labelled these relationships bonding social capital.
These small interactions have a mighty impact on how we see the world because it is through talking with acquaintances and strangers that we learn to trust others, cooperate, moderate our opinions and practice compassion.
To do big things together, we need to make a lot of small talk.
Small talk pulls us into someone else’s world, if only for a few moments, and if we practice it enough, over time we will accumulate enough information to have a good sense of our community.
Twenty-five years ago, Putnam warned we were losing this at our peril, and the current state of the world suggests he was correct.
We’re in the mess we’re now in not because of one massive change (Trump! Climate change! AI!) but because of a multitude of small choices and paths we have followed this century that have tipped the balance towards prioritizing self-interest at the expense, however unintended, of our shared interest.
Much of this change is driven by technological change created, marketed and sold to us as tools that make life easier.
Consider the simple food delivery app that can get you everything from A&W onion rings to your favourite Korean BBQ delivered to your door after an exhausting day at work or hustling the kids to various activities.
When my daughter worked at a local Saint John area pizza joint in high school, she was well-versed in prepping take-out orders that had come in via Doordash, or Skip the Dishes, the latter developed in Saskatoon in 2012 and sold in 2016 to U.K.-based online food delivery corporation Just Eat.
Today she’s a recipient of the service, a staple of urban university life.
Walking around Toronto, food couriers are everywhere.
I pass them, on their fat-tired pedal-powered bikes, electric bikes, scooters and e-scooters, the latter looking like a souped-up skateboard with pogo stick handlebars, some still using the oven mitt-like hand-warmers, despite a humidex of 40C.
They bunch up on corners, a few on the sidewalks, angling to cut a few seconds off their deliveries. When they are still, which is rare, their heads are down, eyes on their phones, thumbs swiping across the screens, or they’re looking up, scanning business signs for the one with the waiting tied plastic or stapled brown paper bags inside.
Their black, orange or aquamarine insulated bags secured above their back wheels or slung across their backs are as ubiquitous on downtown streets as briefcases were when I was a student here.
Food delivery services were created, in the language of the tech sector, to give each of us a multitude of choices by lowering barriers to production and distribution and creating a frictionless experience for the user.
In plain language, that means eliminating life’s little annoyances, whether real or imagined, such as having to schlep down to a restaurant, talk with the waiter or fast-food counter staff, place your order, wait for your food along with a bunch of other people, eat, pay, and then go home.
Frictionless because most human contact has been removed.
We now pay a premium to avoid community, and I’d like to believe most of us don’t want that.
So today, take the time to chat up the cashier, smile at a stranger and if you don’t feel like cooking tonight, choose to eat out and ask your waiter or barista what they’d recommend.
A little small talk today so we’re better prepared to cooperate on the big stuff tomorrow.
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