Conversation Helpers

Post Reply New Topic

I was driving a friend to the airport the other day and she was chatting on with my occasional grunt keeping her going. She was talking about getting to know people, like the UPS driver and all about them, family, kids, etc... she's a good person and knows of my issues so finally came out and asked about my family and such.

But along the way, I came up with an idea that seemed quite brilliant at the time. Now I'm not so sure of course. hehe

The idea is the creation of a set of questions to ask to get to know someone. Maybe expand it to include another set of statements/questions to use more common settings. Many of us who are older and have grown up without knowing about AS until we were well into adulthood have created these internally and reference them when needed. But as I've found out through experience in social situations and in my work (I'm an IS Security guy) that good documention is better than ideas in your head. Also, input from other sources usually strengthens the documentation and makes it easier for everyone to use.

So what are everyone's thoughts on this? Is it a good idea? Should we try to create something like this? Be it a straight list of questions or a branching flowchart, it doesn't matter at first. Just if we should do it or not and if you're interested.

have you ever seen a tech support conversation flow chart? It has specific things to say and kind of gives you a map of how to lead a conversation into multiple areas that you might be skilled in.

I have used these in my brain for conversations for many many years. All of my chit-chat is pre-scripted.

In my experience, I can't plan out a conversation like a class syllabus, because I never get more than a few ideas in before the conversation steers away from my intended path, and if I try to control it and bring it back to what I want to talk about, I come off as rude. Sometimes you have to respect the direction the other person is trying to go.

As an aspie, it's easier for me to be a listener than a talker anyway, because it takes a lot of the pressure off of me, and people appreciate good listeners. (I'm not saying other aspies should be that way. I'm just saying what works for me.)

This is the idea I'm kind of looking for and I also use this for my chit-chat but it is far from complete and I've recently found out lacking in some serious areas. But as the next poster seems to think, not so much as a flow chart to carry on a conversation but to help fill in those questions at least I never remember to ask because they seem frivilous to me.

As I used as an example in my opening post: Siblings - Ask if person has any brothers or sisters? Where did they grow up? etc... (well to be honest if I knew more of these I wouldn't be trying to organize a comprehensive list) hehe

It's like when you see two NTs talk; they seem to already know all about each other; where they went to school; how many kids/siblings; spouses/SO name; etc...

So we'd create a cheat sheet so to speak. One that lists different areas that society expects people to ask about/know of those people we are around often.