Small chat

[Fino]

I'm half brain dead when engaged in most conversations or in a group having a conversation, and then I'm suddenly revived when a certain topic is mentioned, which is rare. Otherwise, 95% of the conversation needs to be held up by the other person.

 

[Progster]

Depends on the group. The small talk that will drive me to watch the grass grow is when people talk about celebrities.

Yes, or sports.

 

[Richelle-H]

Everyday verbal communication is frightfully boring at the best of times although I never let on. I have always had a better command of the language through the written word simply because you can edit what you write but you can rarely take back what you say. That is a veritable minefield waiting for you to step on an unseen explosive word or two that creates a great deal of fallout.

I tend to perseverate in communication. You can proof what you write and remove extraneous or unneeded words. Would that I could do that when I speak, but my mind runs at too high a speed to make that at all feasible. That said I can write or speak too much when the subject is something I am deeply into (which includes myself, unfortunately ). Most of the time, however, I am as mute as a stone wall.

The day-to-day things like "How are you today", I push back a bit, usually answering it with "That's a loaded question, do you really want an honest answer?". I get either laughter or an equally honest answer (both of which I find acceptable). I don't seek out conversation but try to be polite, albeit as honest as I can be, when forced into one. I have to guard against adding too much extraneous information when asked a simple question. I tend to go off on tangents or digressions that can drive some crazy while others can find what I say, interesting.

I can chat when needed, I have even done public speaking and taught technical courses. I used to have a lot of anxiety back in the day when that was going on regularly, but now I have no shame!

 

[FlowerFlo]

I struggle wiht small talk, but can have hour long conversations wiht myself in my head.

 

[anonX]

I struggle wiht small talk, but can have hour long conversations wiht myself in my head.

I think that is common for everyone autistic, NT ... conversations in the head.

The difference is probably with NT's that they apply that in real life conversations, while for autistic the conversations ends in the head when the thinking stops.

 

[Storm Hess]

Reading posts here, I get the feeling that autistic people do write and think like any other NT, many times I find the posts much more interesting and literate than normal. So why do autistic struggle with small chat, if they very well can write explanatory about their daily life?

My question is, I can small chat. With my family, I'm always involved in the table talk, I have something to add and contribute. I would like to go much deeper and sound more interesting, but this is where it stops. At least I'm not totally out of the conversation. And it's much easier with family or a close friend, because they will give you feedback. I'm not sure if I would be able to small chat with a total stranger with a different world view about anything, it would sound weird from my side.

What makes me puzzled is that one of the people at the table, later, could continue some part of the conversation with someone else, over the phone or when they meet them. And they would go much deeper and create an interesting story of what it is they are talking about. I can't, was I masking at that moment, was I just doing a copy behaviour and adding some things coming out of my brain, I'm not sure why I even said those things, not sure if I put anyone in trouble whom I talked about etc. If you understand, this makes me feel limited, anti-intellectual and different.

So there are two things:

1. Being able to do a form of small chat. Quite limited, and not always able, depends on the social circle. Besides not often me that chose the subject what to talk about.
2. Not being able to keep things of the conversation in the air, to later be able to share that with someone else

Is this an autistic trait that others struggle with?

I tend to zone out when people start talking. For the most part, there's nothing of any interest to me when they speak. I'm thinking about a program that I'm writing as I'm typing this. This tends to happen when other people start talking. My mind goes elsewhere. This forum actually helps me focus and convey thoughts without appearing rude to others or getting further distracted.

 

[Knower of nothing]

I personally dont do it because to me, it's spectacularly boring.

All the topics are just inane or dumb to me. Like, no, I have nothing to say about the weather

I think the real kicker is that the weather is actually incredibly interesting. But they don't want to talk about it. They bring it up, but they don't want to talk about it. They don't wanna talk about clouds, trends in temperature, the smell of rain, the ways animals react when a storm is coming, red lightning sprites, nothing. Only the most minute way that the weather mildly impacted maybe their plan to go to the convience store or some vague doomspeak statement about everything dying which they don't even mean seriously it's just meant to express a dull discontentment.
That's the problem with small talk, it doesn't actually have a topic and there is no interest from either party. You're cycling through verbal slop until you find something you DO want to talk about and that's where small talk ends and conversation begins. I think people on the spectrum tend to have less patience or willingness to go through such a cycle because they already know what THEY want to talk about and maybe don't put as much value in what the other wants to talk about and the resulting search for middle ground.