Why Do Some Aspies Hate Small Talk?
I hate it because it takes a lot of time to come up with a good response, but it's something that people do when they don't intend to spend much time talking to you.
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I can't even have a deep conversation. I feel awkward and just fake and I want to stop and go to my room. Actually when talking to my half-brother about physics and alien conspiracies it was pretty fun. So I guess it's the subject matter and how well I know a person.
Small talk...well it depends. Small talk to me is when a stranger starts talking to you when your train is delayed, and it more comments than anything. Or when you are walking through town and an old friend stops you to have a chat. I hate the latter because I just want to do what I came to do and go home. Sudden change bad.
A group chatting while having coffee and biscuits doesn't seem like small talk to me but if it is then I would say that I don't like it because it is hard to fake interest, follow the ever changing subject, hide the fact that I think people are talking bollocks are saying words or fact incorrectly and actually knowing what to say is hard. Then I have speech difficulties and ADHDish muddling up of my words and 'thought freezes.' It's exhausting.
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I just think it's boring... I will try a bit for the sake of normalcy, but I quickly try and move conversations onto something more interesting.
Interestingly, the better I get at helping people feel at ease in my company, the quicker I can push things like that without distrurbing them.
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I can't even have a deep conversation. I feel awkward and just fake and I want to stop and go to my room. Actually when talking to my half-brother about physics and alien conspiracies it was pretty fun. So I guess it's the subject matter and how well I know a person.
Small talk...well it depends. Small talk to me is when a stranger starts talking to you when your train is delayed, and it more comments than anything. Or when you are walking through town and an old friend stops you to have a chat. I hate the latter because I just want to do what I came to do and go home. Sudden change bad.
A group chatting while having coffee and biscuits doesn't seem like small talk to me but if it is then I would say that I don't like it because it is hard to fake interest, follow the ever changing subject, hide the fact that I think people are talking bollocks are saying words or fact incorrectly and actually knowing what to say is hard. Then I have speech difficulties and ADHDish muddling up of my words and 'thought freezes.' It's exhausting.
I can relate to a lot of this. I'd also add that I have the desire to go off in my head and think about what I want to think about.
Penseive wrote~
I can't even have a deep conversation. I feel awkward and just fake and I want to stop and go to my room. Actually when talking to my half-brother about physics and alien conspiracies it was pretty fun. So I guess it's the subject matter and how well I know a person.
Small talk...well it depends. Small talk to me is when a stranger starts talking to you when your train is delayed, and it more comments than anything. Or when you are walking through town and an old friend stops you to have a chat. I hate the latter because I just want to do what I came to do and go home. Sudden change bad.
A group chatting while having coffee and biscuits doesn't seem like small talk to me but if it is then I would say that I don't like it because it is hard to fake interest, follow the ever changing subject, hide the fact that I think people are talking bollocks are saying words or fact incorrectly and actually knowing what to say is hard. Then I have speech difficulties and ADHDish muddling up of my words and 'thought freezes.' It's exhausting.
I can relate to a lot of this. I'd also add that I have the desire to go off in my head think about what to think about.
My wanders too. Actually my imagination kicks in and I see alien spaceships flying overhead. Then someone snaps me out of it and asks me if I was listening to which I reply "uh yeah, of course."
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daydreamer84
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Age: 39
Gender: Female
Posts: 5,001
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Penseive wrote~
I can't even have a deep conversation. I feel awkward and just fake and I want to stop and go to my room. Actually when talking to my half-brother about physics and alien conspiracies it was pretty fun. So I guess it's the subject matter and how well I know a person.
Small talk...well it depends. Small talk to me is when a stranger starts talking to you when your train is delayed, and it more comments than anything. Or when you are walking through town and an old friend stops you to have a chat. I hate the latter because I just want to do what I came to do and go home. Sudden change bad.
A group chatting while having coffee and biscuits doesn't seem like small talk to me but if it is then I would say that I don't like it because it is hard to fake interest, follow the ever changing subject, hide the fact that I think people are talking bollocks are saying words or fact incorrectly and actually knowing what to say is hard. Then I have speech difficulties and ADHDish muddling up of my words and 'thought freezes.' It's exhausting.
I can relate to a lot of this. I'd also add that I have the desire to go off in my head think about what to think about.
My wanders too. Actually my imagination kicks in and I see alien spaceships flying overhead. Then someone snaps me out of it and asks me if I was listening to which I reply "uh yeah, of course."
Same thing............my mind wanders.....................
SyphonFilter
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Location: The intersection of Inkopolis’ Plaza & Square where the Turf Wars lie.
I don't like small talk because I don't want to talk just to "say something". Plus, small talk never is interesting. What do I say when someone asks, "sure is sunny outside, isn't it?", seeing as all they have to do is peek outside to confirm whether it's sunny or not? During small talk, there are times in which the other person doesn't really care what your replies to their questions are; by participating in small talk, many people wish to fill what they see as "awkward silence".
- It requires thinking quickly to come up with lies to fill silence that I'd actually prefer, just because the other person needs reassurance that I'm not some sociopath who's thinking about hurting them.
- It involves pretending to care about boring things that I don't really care about.
- Topics that I do care about are considered to be too intense.
- It is exhausting.
- The primary benefit of doing it is that the more you do it the more people want to do it with you.
No, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm probably not even thinking about you. I may not have even noticed you.
1 It is incredibly boring
2 I am not very good at it
3 As soon as small talk starts my mind either wanders or I get annoyed as they are disrupting more interesting thoughts that I was having lol
4 It's annoying lol. "Lovely sunny day isn't it" to which you feel compelled to answer "yes" whilst simultaneously cringing because you know you can't stand sunny days due to being light sensitive. On the other hand if you reply with "well actually I don't like hot sunny weather because my eyes are sensitive to bright sunlight and the heat of the sun on my skin makes me feel queasy so personally I'd rather have a nice rainy overcast day because I like standing out in the rain and feeling it on my skin as well as listening to it hit the window pane...oh and there is also a foreboding but rather elegant sense of beauty when you see certain buildings or objects set against a dark overcast sky such as the old stone church near my house. It is really rather beautiful and I keep meaning to take a photograph of it one day so that I can perhaps turn it into a painting when I learn to paint in the future. Of course I don't paint at the moment because I am busy with my sequin art and I am on a mission to collect all 49 kits and complete them. The kits are by KSG which a norfolk company you know! Although when I am done completing those I will probably go back to cross stitching again as I presently have over 50 kits in my stash, over 3 years worth of stitching magazines and was in the process of collecting all of the range of threads by DMC and then Anchor. Madeira also do some nice sparkling threads that you can use although personally I like DMC light effects myself. I was also planning to try out stitching on evenweave instead of aida which is the usual material I use and there is also something called black work that I was looking into trying. Have you ever tried black work? There are some nice designs out there for both black work and cross stitch. I particularly like the flower fairies (I collect all things fairy) and popcorn ranges (I collect those too) and..... "
Oh dear they seem to have gone!
For me, it's because it involves a contraction of consciousness...when making small talk the information content is too small, so I have to force myself to slow down my mind or the spare brainpower starts thinking about something else and I often find I've stopped listening to the small talk.
Then I have to either stop and ask them what they were talking about (which is ok if it happens once but if you do it all the time people don't like it much...), or try to bluff my way through it (which I'm not very good at).
In contrast, when I'm discussing something really interesting, my mind feels alive, like it's moving at it's natural speed, expansive and powerful. If it's a particularly interesting conversation, my mind races, and I experience a sort of high as I make more and more connections and probe deeper into the questions.
As I've got older (I'm 36) I've come to understand the purpose of small talk, and have become reasonably skilled in it, but I still don't enjoy it much. I definitely prefer to get to the big talk as quickly as possible.
I'm unsure just what small talk is.
To statements like "nice day" a "mmm." seems to suffice. Questions, I can understand, as I understand curiousity.
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Female, undiagnosed, 34/50 on the test 80 percent of aspies get 32 or more on, NT score 54/200, Aspie score 164/200.
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