At the beginning of Act III of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion Henry Higgins shows up unannounced to his mother’s at-home day tea.

Mrs. Higgins (dismayed). Henry (scolding him)! Go home at once.

Higgins. Oh bother! (He throws the hat down on the table.)

Mrs. Higgins. But you mustn’t. I’m serious, Henry. You will offend all my friends. They stop coming whenever they meet you.

Higgins. Nonsense! I know I have no small talk, but people don’t mind. (He sits on the settee.)

Mrs. Higgins. Oh! Don’t they? Small talk indeed! What about your large talk? Really, dear, you mustn’t stay.

Higgins. I must. I have a job for you. A phonetic job.

The job is to test out Eliza Doolittle in mixed company. She looks the part of a lady in such a setting and for a while she succeeds at the gathering–long enough to catch the eye of Freddy Enysford Hill and to keep Professor Higgins interested in turning a flower girl into a lady.

Liza’s small talk soon turns into large talk about details of her personal life in a Cockney register that does not fit the at-home day gathering. Small chit chat about topics designed to go nowhere were the rule for such gatherings.

My head comes back to ways of talking at Christmas because I missed the chance to engage in any kind of talk to speak of due to the pandemic. I can speak small talk. My way of doing it is by listening much more than I talk and just giving back occasional signals to others that I am listening and interested. I can work a room.

Yet I am not at ease doing so. I like large talk. What I mean by large talk is conversation about a significant idea that develops. I crave conversation that builds thinking on one subject with two or more people exchanging thoughts that form something that is larger than anything inside one person’s head.

Maybe my desire for large talk comes from teaching English. I loved critical reading questions that started with one student saying what he thought using logic and facts that led to someone quickly jumping in with a slightly different take on what had begun the conversation. On good days I just stepped back and played the role of conversation promoter.

I can find such conversations on National Public Radio. I love to listen to Terry Gross on Fresh Air because she is always prepared but never pushy. She asks questions of guests in a way that draws them out and she knows when to take her foot off of her mouth accelerator to allow the guests to bring forth something significant that had not been planned. Good conversation requires the ability to listen and to allow slight pauses to ripen.

I love to listen to someone who is smarter and more prepared on the subject than I am. I relish thinking that challenges and extends what I know and am thrilled when what I have heard makes me rethink what I thought I thought. Of course, I am talking about civil, polite conversation. Conversations that become heated do not necessarily offend me, but I hate cable news shouting matches and talkers who are locked in to set way of seeing the world that precludes outside ideas.

To my mind good conversations can attack an idea but not the person. They can be about any subject or experience that is more than just a report from a speaker that does not invite a response from a listener. My favorite subjects are from big ideas in science and civic life that affect all of us. I like seeing what is in a speaker’s head and heart about climate change, government, pandemics, or the future of retail or almost anything that connects us all as citizens.

I like talking to friends who think like me, but I do not seek confirmation bias. I like best talking to someone who knows more than I do and has thought deeper than I have. I like the mental tag-a-long that is created in my head trying to follow a train of thought down its tracks.

Small talk that sticks to the superficial and skates around here and there without landing anywhere ultimately bores me. Like Higgins I am best at conversational large talk, but at 72 I am not looking to sell my perspective as gospel and I am open to most any subject.

Yeah, like most people in this pandemic-stricken world, I miss talking to people period. For now I will just keeping reading books, listening to NPR, and occasionally talking to myself around the dog.