I had a buddy who became a nuclear submariner. I saw him at a Christmas party and soon found out there wasn’t a whole lot to make small talk about.
They spend months at a time isolated completely from the entire world..............
My son could make friends with a stump and makes friends everywhere he goes. He was depressed at the grueling life he was living where 16 hr days doing little of importance had worn him down physically.
He was such a jerk in High school that I never figured he would make it through power school (I would say that is about the same level of difficulty as a Physics BS.)
I was impressed and proud.
Maybe the small talk just has to revolve around subs. In the fam, we had a nuc sub commander - didn't know him much, but did attend the change of command ceremony. Visitors were on the dock, and the ceremony was on sub top, facing the visitors. ALL the food was made in the sub kitchen, including a huge cake for dessert.
Back to the topic of small talk, prior to this command, there was a LOT of prior works to step "up the ladder", including working on 1 and 2 man subs. He was interested in talking about that stuff (in a non-specific way).
my son in law was one———