Or hanging out and talking about the same topics over and over and over, with never a new or novel thing to say, drinking the same beer/wine/cocktail over and over.

We were his two students and, very early on, while we were practicing in his backyard (he had no school, he had just agreed to teach us) we asked our martial art teacher what was the interest in repeating the same move over and over again instead of learning different ones. He told us that if we were really feeling that we were repeating the exact same move this meant he was failing as a teacher. That day, I realized how deeply ingrained and how wrong my very own preconceptions could be.

Obviously, martial art is not endless chatting but you get the idea: there may be something valuable to get out of seemingly repetitive and monotonous activities.

On a more general note, like already mentioned in the comments, doing repetitive things is an easy way to relax.

My health being what it is, I'm much less into intense physical activities than when I wanted to learn martial art, but I still do enjoy long walks, daily long walks. Walking is a very repetitive task, it's just putting one foot in front of the other, sometimes for a couple hours or more. Still, doing it helps me feel so much better than not just putting one foot in front of the other for a few hours. I would not want to stop doing such seemingly boring and uninteresting task ;)

As for chatting with friends. It's called socializing, provided one keeps it under tight control (it should not become the end-all be-all of one's activities) it's also an important part.