The 5-minute pauses I mentioned earlier would largely be because I don't know the person particularly well, so I don't know what the person is and is not comfortable with talking about. Thus, I'm SEVERELY limited in what I can talk about. Understandably, most people would get up and leave after five SECONDS.
But if I do manage to get any kind of conversation started, then as I get to know the person better, I can share more and more things, and so the minutes-long pauses shrink to seconds. Eventually, I can talk like an extrovert (think by talking) to the person on occasion!
But unlike NT's (particularly extroverts), I can only talk like this with someone I'm VERY VERY VERY familiar with. Like, very close friend or girlfriend. Only then am I confident enough I won't step on some land mine (hush-hush topic, special interest, negative connotation, etc.) The big conundrum for me, then, is that NT's consider this kind of pause-free chitchat a pre-requisite to the very thing I consider a pre-requisite for extrovert-like talk!! A Catch-22, if you will.
Most of my friends, I met while we were DOING something together. Classmates, for instance. We could talk about the course, the professor, homework, tests, papers, etc. Real information that can help BOTH of us get a better grade in the class. Another very good friend of mine was my resident assistant while I was living in student housing. So in that case, it was to some extent his JOB to make friends with me lol. Much less "small-talk" (much of which I think of as more like ZERO SIZE) required in those cases!
So maybe I need to work on my "medium-small" talk, so to speak. Just big enough to keep me interested, but small enough for NT's to give it a chance. Like a snowball, if I have SOMETHING to start with, I can roll more and more onto it! I do need to meet THEM halfway, after all...
_________________
Your Aspie score: 98 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 103 of 200
You seem to have both Aspie and neurotypical traits
AQ: 33
