What makes it worse is the language barrier… cuz I’ve been using English since 8 and its my primary lanfuage, and my mom sounds awkward af in English and she won’t understand complex topics…
And like if I start talking philosophy, then it sounds so doomer and like mom be like: (translated) “Why are you overthinking everything?”
But okay wtf do I talk about? Do I start going on a rant about politics and them mom be like: “You can’t change politics, just accept it”
Like WHAT DO YOU WANT?
I talk to dad about like hypothetical interstellar travel and time dialation and dad was like: “Cool story bro” (like the Cantonese equivalent of it)
Like what the hell, are they just so boring? And they are saying I’m gonna become “autistic” because I never talk to them…
There’s nothing to talk about that ends the conversation happily.
Literally more boring responses than a fucking LLM lmfao
I talk to my parents at least once a week.
The majority of it is just each others’ goings on. Stuff my son did this week, like his chess club meets, or karate classes, or special school events. Maybe he visited a friend’s place, or one of his friends came over to ours. My wife and I help run a non-profit PTO organization, so we’ll often talk about events we run or are planning for. We might talk about things we’ve done with our own friends.
My mom’s been fighting cancer and other health issues off and on for years, so from their end, it’s often updates about that. Doctors’ appointments or just how her day-to-day pain management is going. But we’ll also talk about other things going on in their lives, similar to what I mentioned above about ours. Often, she’ll fill me in on things happening with regard to extended family, as she has several siblings, and mu dad has even more. Weddings, graduations, new babies, illnesses, that kinda stuff. During baseball season, we’ll probably talk a little bit about games we watched during the week.
Long story short: what we talk about is our lives. Cause we care about each other, so it’s each other that we’re interested in. And I don’t mean that as a criticism, or an implication that you don’t feel the same way about your family. I’m just trying to put into words what the, uhh… emotional logic is, behind it all. It sounds like you’re having trouble wrapping your head around that part, and if so, I can appreciate why the whole concept of small talk might seem inscrutible to you.
Alternatively, maybe there just… isn’t a relationship of mutual love and care between you and your parents. If so, that sucks, whatever the reason. It all works in my scenario because the love and care is genuine, both ways. If it wasn’t, that’d be a tough roadblock to overcome.