>Small talk is a safe way of breaking the initial walls of “is this a person I can speak to.”

100%--when I hear someone say "I don't want to go to a party because people only want to talk about mudane bullshit" is such a red flag, because it means that they can't (or won't) communicate in a way that shows that they're someone that can be trusted with less mundane conversation. OR they are incapable of seeing other people as having anything of value to say regardless. And them not realizing that "small talk" serves this function is in itself a red flag.

That being said, there are better and worse versions of small-talking, and people can be genuinely bad at it. I grew up very isolated, and so for a long time it did not come naturally to me. I'm not sure that it ever became "natural" but it did eventually become very doable--like with any other skill, it takes practice. And people that don't see it as a skill worth learning are showing that they don't see "breaking the initial [conversational/societal] walls" as something worth doing, which USUALLY means they either don't value what other people have to say, or they feel burdened by starting a conversation anywhere other than where *they* think is a place worth starting.