If you stop by your neighbor’s front stoop or go to that networking event or say hi to a colleague in the breakroom, you’ll almost definitely end up making boring small talk —right? The kind that makes you wish a bed would emerge from the ground because you’re surely going to drift off. The kind that you’re better off avoiding at all costs. Not so fast: New research suggests the topics people tend to dismiss as small talk —the weather, their neighbor’s cats, the stock market—may actually be the