It is the sterotypical thing to talk about, but the point is not the actual weather. It is signal that they would rather be talking to you than be silent. It’s an invitation to start a conversation, since people don’t routinely come up to you and say ‘I would like to being a conversation with you—please suggest a topic’. They say ‘Raining again!’ instead.
Also, talking about a shared experience is powerful, no matter what that experience is. Compare other generic conversation topics: if you both saw the same movie lately, or both watched [$SPORTS_EVENT], then that’s a shared experience. You can’t necessarily rely on the other person having seen the latest cultural whatsit, but you can be pretty sure they’ve experienced the weather.
It is the sterotypical thing to talk about, but the point is not the actual weather. It is signal that they would rather be talking to you than be silent. It’s an invitation to start a conversation, since people don’t routinely come up to you and say ‘I would like to being a conversation with you—please suggest a topic’. They say ‘Raining again!’ instead.
Also, talking about a shared experience is powerful, no matter what that experience is. Compare other generic conversation topics: if you both saw the same movie lately, or both watched [$SPORTS_EVENT], then that’s a shared experience. You can’t necessarily rely on the other person having seen the latest cultural whatsit, but you can be pretty sure they’ve experienced the weather.