[asto]

I've noticed it's mostly the geeky sort who think it's bullshit. I prefer sitting at home and playing computer games or learning something new when compared to lunches or dinners or other social gatherings because it bores me to death to make idle conversation.

Most normal people though need to make small talk, it's an important part of their lives. Also, most people dislike (or worse) those who are terse in day to day conversation.

[DTrejo]

> [...] it bores me to death to make idle conversation.

The hard part is driving the conversation to something you both find interesting.

Every person has something they could talk about for hours — the hard part is figuring out what that is. True, you just might not care about all the different kinds of hooks one can use to catch fish, but that's ok, half of what makes a conversation interesting is enthusiastic delivery.

[asto]

I like talking to one other person esp. if they are 1. intelligent 2. not a web programmer (as long as they're talking about something I am not very aware of, I'm good) . I was talking about small talk in groups.

Conversation always tends to the most boring topics. I could talk about very interesting things about computers. Somebody at the table may be into finance. Someone else into fashion. No matter how interesting these people may be as individuals, conversation in a group tends towards things everyone at the table is comfortable conversing about. Mr/Ms 'look at these awesome shoes I bought last weekend' is not going to be terribly impressed by the Mr/Ms 'latest advances in computing' and vice versa. So you will soon be in a content devoid conversation full of how are yous and how are things at work and how are the kids and parents and... AAAAAAAAAA!!!