I said, "How have you been?" That wasn't the question.

Running into an ex on the street is a masterclass in performative acting.

We stood on the corner for five minutes. I smiled. You smiled. I said, "How have you been?" You said, "Oh, you know, just really busy with work."

It was a perfectly polite exchange, but every single word was a lie. "How have you been?" wasn't actually a question. What I was really asking was, Do you still think about that weekend in December? Do you regret how it ended? Does it hurt you to see me standing here?

We both knew the script, so we played along. But walking away, I felt utterly exhausted, as if I had just run a marathon.

There is a psychological reason for that exhaustion. It is called Expressive Suppression. In behavioral science, suppression is a coping mechanism where you consciously hide your genuine emotional response behind a socially acceptable mask. According to a landmark study by James Gross in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, suppressing emotion requires an immense amount of cognitive and physical energy. It literally spikes your blood pressure and drains your mental battery.

We were trying so hard to appear "chill" and unaffected that it physically drained us.

Small talk is rarely small. It is just the packaging we use for the feelings we aren't brave enough to unpack. The next time you find yourself standing on a sidewalk, smiling through an interaction while your brain runs a thousand miles an hour, you'll need the Currently overthinking this conversation / Dad Hat. Put it on. It won't make the small talk easier, but at least your hat is telling the truth.

The Science Behind the Vibe:

• Gross, J. J. (1998). Antecedent-and response-focused emotion regulation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The study proves that "expressive suppression"—forcing polite small talk while actively hiding intense emotions—significantly depletes cognitive resources and increases physiological stress. Link to Official DOI