I genuinely don’t get this social rule

I don’t understand WHY I HAVE TO MAKE SMALL TALK IN THE STAFF ROOM TO BUILD PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIPS. UGH.

The fake smile, the fake interested voice, the fake interest. I just don’t get why we have to make small talk, for the sake of making small talk. Apparently it’s to “build professional relationships” but what kind of relationship am I gonna get from: “Hi, how are you?” “Good, how are you?” “Oh I’m alright thanks!” Literally what was the point of that interaction?

Like I’ll build professional relationships when I have to talk to people for a specific reason, rather than just talking to them for no reason!

I genuinely didn’t know this but apparently it’s an unwritten rule that when you go into the staff room you have to talk to people or you get seen as rude? Why? I didn’t say anything why is that rude? I’m rude because I don’t have a dead conversation with someone that neither one of us truly care about because we’ve both got a million work tasks on our mind and you want me to further drain my energy by engaging in meaningless interactions when that energy could be preserved for something more useful?

Then when you genuinely take an interest in people- they find you weird and you’re talking too much! But not if it’s fake interested!

It’s all just so confusing and doesn’t make any sense.