Small talk/expectations in convo holds so much back.

I have always thought this in some way since being a child but more strongly than ever I feel like I get nothing except exhaustion from talking on a surface level. I often feel like such an awkward person due to the expectation of small talk. Things like meeting up with someone and talking about the most basic of things or listening to a family member/friend telling a story but they don’t go into it, adding no depth or anything further to say in the conversation. Being so awkward because neither knows what is ok to speak about.
I don’t mean chatting with your friends on Xbox or with your family while playing a board game because not everything has to be emotional but I think comfortability in a conversation is so key and I don’t believe you have to know someone deeply for that to happen. I do believe that without the stress of thinking “how do I respond/react to this in the most proper way” we would all be better off. I understand that there are boundaries to everything but it should be okay to ask what you’re thinking and say what you have been wanting to say. Why do we make conversation so compact and emotionless and often very formal. Like let’s just be honest. It was a breath of fresh air when a few weeks ago my friend whom I hadn’t seen in a long time came to visit. He greeted me, sat down and said “well this is a bit awkward…just with not seeing eachother in awhile, I haven’t given you a hug yet come here” then we spoke openly about the past, present and how he feels all while asking how I am and listening to that. We spoke for around 4hours and I wasn’t exhausted like I usually am after 20minutes of most conversations.

I’m struggling to get my point across about how I believe such limited conversations that are just the norm does hold back so much. By no means am I saying i wish people were perfect at speaking. I just wish conversations and communication in general didn’t have to be so complicated and held back, we created language to express emotions yet we use language far too often to compress emotions.