Small-talk with interruptions

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In the process of making small talk NT's often inquire about my work, interests, etc. They often do so even in an extremely hectic environment where the probability that I'll have time to give a complete answer before being interrupted is virtually nil. It irritates me so much to have to go through such an effort when in all likelyhood they aren't even able to listen.

I found that in order to make sure I don't get cut off I have to dumb down my response to the point where it's far short of accurate. It seems that's the only graceful way to handle the situation since getting cut off makes me want to pull out my hair or punch something. Telling them "I don't have time to explain in a way you'll understand" is the honest but condescending answer. If I'm in a bad mood though I really don't care.

They absolute worst offenders are the ones that interrupt my mental concentration with small-talk questions only to have their cell phone go off as soon as I start to answer, in which case they walk off chattering on the phone and never come back.

I was wondering if anyone else is bothered by this.

I am.

I often experience someting very similar. But I try to answer enyway, because it can be possible that some time passes before the interruption.

But when the interruption comes, the NT can switch over to the new conversation in one second. I can't, if it's me that get interrupted like that. I'll get confused and say, wait a bit, I was saying something to NN, but I'll return to you.
I wonder, why they ask a question and don't even take time to hear the answer before another one comes.
Or why the other one doesn't wait until we are finished.
But that must be because it's "small" talk.

But now that I know it's an aspie thing, when that fast NT switch happen, I fastly try to focus on something else when I wait for them to finish so I can continue where we got interrupted.

being interrupted is a pet peeve of mine- besides being rude it makes me lose my train of thought which can be like quicksilver.

Small talk is an emotional barometer check and social lubricant. They don't want to know how many inches we are getting at what time, they want to know if they should remember an umbrella. I mean this in both the literal and figurative sense.
"How bout this weather, huh?"
"I know right? clearing by thursday at least hopefully!"
"So I heard! So I heard! Alright back to the grind, oh by the way, you want to check out that new thai place opened down at the shopping center at lunch? Frank said he might go with me and somebody told me you like spicy."
If you are asked how the project is going by a co worker who has no real direct involvement in the project, they might be trying to get a sense of whether you can get away from the office for lunch, or they know when you are really struggling to meet a deadline you get snippy and they should keep their head down. It is considered rude for them to just walk up to a co worker and say "hey are you going to be pissy today? I usually like you despite the rambling, but when you get pissy and rambly you are just ranting and it really brings me down." Small talk more than other communications is about the how and the why not the what. It is about sending feelers out. Think more like a politician on the campaign trail, deflect everything in a positive but noncommittal manner, keep it short, talk in catchy sound bites. Don't think of it as dumbing down, think of it is paraphrasing and highlighting. Stick to things that have relevancy to the other party, otherwise remember that home base is "Fine."

I know what it's about. They're trying to be friendly but end up asking me the wrong questions. I wouldn't mind if they asked about the weather since I can talk about that with very little mental investment. I could care less if I get interrupted or the subject changes.

But when they ask me a question that requires a significant amount of thought on my end it's irritating when they aren't able to listen to my entire response. It bothers me so much that I often come up with excuses to avoid answering their questions. A lot of the time I really don't want to talk about certain things but NT's always bring them up. Some topics just take too much energy to discuss in an unsuitably distracting environment.

I was hoping more people could relate to this.

I get this too. I hate being interrupted!
But I find people don't really want an answer so they know, it's more a ritual in which people adknowledge one another before going back to the task at hand. It's just a throwaway exchange people find reassuring to do, so it doesn't matter what the answer is if it's not really required.
As for the phone thing or them starting to talk to someone else, just adknowledge them then move off to what you need to do. Apparently it's not considered rude to do this as I used to think, as long as you look in their eyes and nod/smile first.

Those two pieces of information helped me greatly with that so I wasn't awkwardly hanging there waiting.