Common Themes in Pointless Conversation: 

1. The retelling of events (under the guise of ‘story‘) that have less than a 5% interest value for the intended audience.
2. Food, the recipes and the potential purchase points of the food.
3. Dreams, even those that feature the audience member or are deemed ‘weird‘ by the dream-haver.
4. The beginning of a story of interest (over 50% by all parties) that has a minor detail that an audience member spins into a tangential sub-story (an event that earns >5% interest). Example: A story from an astronaut on spending two years in space gets derailed by an audience member who explains the nearest gas station to the shuttle launch is close to their childhood friend’s parents house.
5. Speaker A fills over 120 seconds of time with their own voice. No speaker should occupy more than 90 seconds of talk-time. A conversation should include at least a 60% / 40% split between the two speakers. If not, it is a monologue.