Small Talk

I've never quite fully understood the need for small talk or at least those little phrases and questions that most people use to start a conversation. For example, most conversations start: "Hi, how are you?" "Good, and yourself?" "Not bad." and unless you've had something important happen that you can start talking about conversation can have a tendency to stop right there. What do you really learn about a person in just those few sentences? Those basic silly conversation starters really don't always start a conversation or they often have one of those awkward pauses where you go "So...Um.. *insert random conversation sparking question here*". Why can't conversations just start with those conversation starting questions? Skip all those silly phrases that don't mean anything and just actually get into conversation. If you need to ask how someone is then sure do so at some point, but if you start that way and everything is fine and neither of you has anything big to talk about, where do you go from there? And why do so many people really feel the need to start conversation there? Is it just because that's how, as children, we are taught to be polite and how we see adults talking to each other? Shouldn't we try to get to know something about someone in the first few minutes of talking? It seems to me that doing that is much more meaningful than, "Hey, how ya doin?" unless of course that was after "A dragon captures you and takes you back to its lair. How do you escape?".

I think I may start using that as my conversation starter, so if i happen to speak to you on regular basis, my dear reader, be prepared with your answer. And they better be good.