Making Small Talk

Post Reply New Topic

Hi there, I'm Kylie and I'm 18 years old. I was only recently diagnosed with Asperger's, but it has come as a huge relief to me. Finally I have a name for what I have been struggling with all my life!

Now that I know I have it, I'm more aware of the signs and symptoms and thus can be more aware of when I am displaying them. One thing that I struggle with the most is small talk. I find questions such as "How are you?" and "How was your weekend?" very hard to respond to. Often, because I interpret them as simple questions, I give them simple, one-word answers. So I might just say "Good," whereas someone without Asperger's might say "Good, I went to the movies with my friend and we had a great time!!" Because I have a hard time doing this, I find most of my conversations stop abruptly and I have difficulty interacting with people.

Does anyone have tips for "expanding" on their responses to these questions? How much is too much? Should I just respond with a sentence and allow the other person to jump in? Should I expand more? How much is too little?

Also, I have trouble responding to other people's replies. For example, I asked a teacher how she was last week and she said, "I'm alright, I'm tired." I said, "Long week?" as I've noticed that's what a lot of people tend to say in response to those kinds of things. I expected her to say, "Yeah," and I have would said something like, "It must have been tough with all those midterms you had to grade." But she kind of took an unexpected turn and said, "Actually, it wasn't so bad." All I could manage was, "Yeah?" and our conversation stopped.

What are some good anticipated responses to these questions? How do I respond to these appropriately?

Any help is much appreciated! Thank you!

I am not sure it will help, but I plan all conversations I might have / encounter in advance. So if I know I am going somewhere I am expected to talk I take an assessment of probable questions and come up with stock answers. If I have time or feel bold I might make up a question to ask an pretend I care about what the person says.