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Forcing out the silence.

It's cold outside and the wind carves its needles into your bones. I'm inside drinking a hot beverage and I feel cozy. This is one thing I love about winter. The warmth it brings you when you least expect it.

I like meeting new people and small talking with them. I find myself to excel at small talk because I'm usually fairly comfortable with the majority of the topics discussed in small talk occasions and I usually have some previous knowledge about the topics as well. People often like to discuss the weather or go briefly through current events or chatter about a celebrity. I think people see me as a person who is genuinely interested in them because I generally am. People interest me, no matter what they're like.
   I find the Finnish people to be exceptionally bad at small talk. They can usually contribute to a small discussion with one grunt, two mm-hmm's and a nod. I like to talk and I find it hard to build a conversation when the other participant lacks the skills to do so. It's a general Finnish misconception that the aim of small talk is to befriend someone. No. The aim of small talk to most people is to be polite. To me it's the key to open up a perspective of the person I'm talking with as well as kill time. I don't like silence in public places such as waiting rooms but it always seems to be unavoidable. Nobody talks. Waiting rooms, elevators, queues are always filled with a silence that has crept so deep into an abyss that it's impossible to fish it out of there. Breaking the silence.
   Killing time is easy with the help of small talk. You can get involved in a conversation of some sentences, which usually lasts approximately a couple minutes but if the other person is bored as well and has the similar interest of choking time to death, the conversation might last much longer. Maybe until the wait is over.

.she missed the train to mars.