Do you hate to make small talk? If so, you have lots of company.

You may find small talk irritating, predictable, mind-numbingly boring.

Yet, learning to play the small talk game can have lots of good benefits. You will have a much better chance of succeeding in making new friends, and advancing in your career if you can master the major art of making small talk.

Small talk is the name commonly given to the fairly predictable superficial chatter that makes up a large portion of our social encounters. Neighbors chatting over the fence, strangers speaking to each other in a grocery line, or workers talking at an office party will often engage in the exchange of fairly ritual, routine observations, comments and questions. Often there is no intent by either party to take the conversation to a deeper level.

Most of the comments and questions tend to be of a fairly trivial sort. For example, a person might say, "I wonder when this heat wave will ever end," or "That