“Speak only if it improves upon the silence.”

Introverts and card-carrying HSPs don’t need an explanation; this might as well be their mantra. To those with rich inner lives, silence is golden. And that explains, at least on the surface, why small talk and the HSP — especially the introvert HSP — aren’t bedfellows.

But a certain amount of small talk is necessary and unavoidable in life. It’s how we break the ice, get a sense of another person’s temperament and mood, and ease into other topics.

And yet, when it comes to small talk, HSPs have low tolerance and finite limits. Small talk may have its time and place, but the HSP will always know when it has overstayed its welcome.

So why do Highly Sensitive People have such an aversion to superficial, casual conversation? Are they just antisocial or socially awkward?

And how does this “cheap chat” affect them?

Why HSPs Hate Small Talk

If you’ve been soaking up everything you can about high sensitivity, you may have noticed a pattern: In one way or another, regardless of the topic, the four core characteristics of the high-sensitivity trait play a central role. 

And they will here, too.

But that doesn’t imply redundancy. 

In order to fully understand, embrace, and manage our trait, we have to explore it in multiple contexts. And, in this case, that context is verbal communication and its challenges for HSPs: specifically, small talk and the HSP.

How the 4 pillars of high sensitivity make small talk difficult for HSPs

• Depth of processing:

  Small talk, chit-chat, gossip: It’s all empty communication. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Skim the surface, stay on the shallow end, no diving allowed.
  
  And yet, for all its absence of reward, it requires a lot of energy to keep that back-and-forth going. Timing, responding, giggling, exaggerated facial expressions – all in the name of filling that void coveted and well used by HSPs: silence.
  
  To most HSPs, the mere thought of it for anything more than introductory politeness is dreadful. While all the world is prattling away, filling the atmosphere with useless noise, the HSP is thinking. Taking in voluminous amounts of sensory data and churning it into insightful thoughts and invigorating curiosities. Rationing energy expenditure for important matters like meaningful conversation.
  
  Keep the stopwatch running on small talk, and the HSP will most likely retreat into another world. What may seem on the surface to be reticence, shyness, or antisocial behavior is actually a retreat into deep mental processing. The HSP is, after all, picking up on more than just dead-end chatter. There is all the surrounding sensory data to take in and process, too.
  
  Were you to capture the undivided, one-on-one attention of an HSP, however, you would discover something remarkable. This depth of processing – this seeming gazing-into-nowhere-while-the-party-goes-on-around-them – is what makes HSPs exceptional listeners.

  
  Want to feel truly seen and heard? Care to engage in authentic conversation that goes beyond the emptiness of small talk? Then sit down with an HSP.
  
  But remember to listen, too. All that mental processing can fuel some amazing commentary from the quiet sage.

• Overstimulation/overwhelm:

  HSPs, as you know, are highly susceptible to overstimulation and overwhelm. It’s why we’re careful to parcel our social commitments.
  
  Crowds, loud noises, bright lights, erratic movements are fodder for overarousal and anxiety to the HSP. Verbal communication in and of itself can feel draining for HSPs. They are, after all, aware of so many cues, not all of which are verbal. And bringing all those deep, complex thoughts to the surface is no small task.
  
  But small talk poses its own overarousal challenges for the HSP. It takes energy to stay engaged, regardless of how useless that engagement is. Chatter requires quick thinking, quick comebacks, overlapping comments, even interruptions.
  
  And HSPs gain nothing from useless chatter. They’re bored by it, trapped by it, maddened by it. “When will this end? How do I get out of here? Why am I even here?” It’s easier for HSPs to avoid overstimulation in the first place because recovering from it can be exhausting.
  
  What does overstimulation feel like for HSPs? Exhausting. Confusing. Maddening. Irritating. Imprisoning. Suffocating. Threatening. They may experience emotional and verbal shutdown, feel like crying, and/or get headaches and other physical symptoms.

  
  All that from seemingly harmless small talk. To the HSP, the futility and the endless nature of it are like being lost in the woods with no way out.

• Emotional reactivity/empathy:

  An unspoken rule of small talk is that there’s no emotional involvement. Talk about the weather, the Super Bowl, your favorite reels on TikTok. But don’t go out of bounds by asking serious questions or giving serious answers.
  
  HSPs and small talk are antithetical in this way. It’s not that HSPs are “always serious”; it’s that they perceive and feel everything.
  
  Empathy is innate to HSPs. They feel others’ emotions, sometimes even before others feel their own emotions. Try skirting authentic conversation with small talk, and the HSP in the room will notice.
  
  As with depth of processing, the quality of empathy is another reason HSPs are exceptional listeners. They’re like soul-gazers that make you want to share and explore your deepest thoughts and feelings.
  
  But remember to be compassionate to the HSP. To be on the receiving end of an HSP’s innate gifts can be life-changing. But these qualities come at a great price to the Highly Sensitive Person.

   
  Think of small talk as the social solution to having to feel, explore, risk, debate, or otherwise expend emotional energy. And think of high sensitivity as the pack mule for all the valuable content abandoned by useless chatter.

• Sensory sensitivity:

  Hand-in-hand with vulnerability to overstimulation is sensory sensitivity. Take the five senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch, and just bombard them.

  
  That’s what it’s like for someone with sensory sensitivity. It lowers the threshold for “too muchness.” It makes the sensitive person want to cover his eyes and ears and crawl into a fetal position.
  
  And, while many people may be familiar with this in the context of autism and spectrum disorders, it applies to high sensitivity, too.
  
  What does small talk have to do with sensory sensitivity for HSPs?
  
  Imagine being “inside your head,” deep in thought or anxiously praying for the mindless chatter around you to end. But the talking doesn’t end. It has no direction, no purpose, no gain, no end. It just goes on and on and on. And, of course, you have to stay alert and therefore not totally occupied with your own thoughts. After all, you never know when those around you will expect you to smile, nod, or chime in. (And it’s also in your nature to be a people-pleaser.)
  

  Noise can be an extreme source of sensory overload for HSPs. And small talk, at least to HSPs, is pretty much just that: noise. 

What Do HSPs Really Want Out of Verbal Communication?

I think HSPs are some of the most courageous people on the planet. (And yes, I’m an HSP, so there is that acknowledgment, too.) 

To those who don’t understand this trait, HSPs may seem timid, sheltered, even lonely.

But to those who live or at least understand the trait of high sensitivity, the reality is different.

This significant but minority population not only doesn’t fear, but actually yearns for, what the rest of the world forgoes. They walk this earth like bearers of hidden treasure…because they are.

So, should anyone be surprised that small talk is aversive to anyone who has so much more to share?

To the HSP,  communication is about relationship, even within a limited context. And relationship, at least to the sensitive soul, mandates authenticity.

“Let’s be honest. Let’s be real. How about being curious. Let’s make eye contact. Let’s listen with our hearts. Mirror what the other has to say. Let’s be compassionate and empathetic. Let’s learn from one another. Grow from the experience. And let’s walk away better, wiser, more inspired.”

The Kalahari Bushmen: listening to stars sing

There was a time when the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa were the most populous indigenous people on the planet. Tragically, not only for them, but for the world at large, we have overrun and marginalized them almost to extinction.

Lauren van der Post has chronicled this lost culture in his many writings about growing up in southern Africa. 

Without question, the most profound revelation about these fascinating people is their deep, even extrasensory, connection to Nature.

The Kalahari Bushmen listen to Nature. They hear the stars sing. Literally.

And they feel deep sadness for those who can’t; for such disconnect from Nature reflects, in their minds, a great illness.

And if you can’t improve the silence….

Even if the story of the Kalahari Bushmen were purely allegorical, it would be worth contemplation.

But their story is real. Their connection to Nature is real. Their reverence for silence is real. 

And it provides the perfect conclusion to a discussion about small talk and the HSP. If anything, it makes most talk – and especially futile, superficial small talk – seem so trivial, so beneath our aptitude and purpose.

I wonder if these natives were among the first Highly Sensitive People: a pure concentration of authentic connection to the Universe.

Regardless, I’m convinced they’d bring this discussion full circle with the words that later humans surely borrowed from them:

“Speak only if it improves upon the silence.”

Dr. Elayne Daniels is a psychologist, consultant, and international coach in the Boston area whose passion is to help people celebrate their High Sensitivity…and shine their light.

To read more about High Sensitivity, check out some blogs here. https://www.hspglow.com/category/thriving-as-a-highly-sensitive-person/