Freaking out about "small talk"

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I have not been diagnosed as AS yet but part of the reason I am scheduled to be evaluated is that I tend to freak out about non-purposeful conversation (small talk) to the point that I avoid talking on the phone and eat/sit alone even when in a room full of friends. Is there anything I can do to not feel so anxious about talking to people?

I usually think of a sentence to say before approaching people,
somthing limke: "Hi, what's up? Did you see the show on T.V. last night?" then the person or people will start a conversation about the show - nosmall talk there!

I usually kill any attempt to small talk!

I have these things down

hi
how are you
how is your job
How is your day
(if I have never met them I can ask about job and hobbies)

beyond that I am lost.

and if the person doesn't know me they usually end the conversation after they find out I have a degree in math. The last thing I ever hear is "oh you are one of those people"

except I do not know what that means

and one this guy told me that he "didn't think people like me were smart" when he found out I majored in math. I don't get that either.

it seems that if I don't know the person I chase them away and if I do know them then I don't know what to say. Even with my husband he will say "I want to hang out and talk" and then I ask him what he wants to talk about and he says I don't know why don't you think of something and then I freeze up and stare at the wall.

I have a degree in math too!
I'm working on my second degree now, so I'm in the company of people that I can allways talk abot science with.

When people tall you "didn't think people like me were smart" it means they think your good looking, I don't know why but people think you can't be both smart and pretty...

You'r luky to be married, I wish I was...

Today I had to listen to small-talk, when I was with my classmates in lunchbreak, since my friend were already off. It reminded me of primary school and the desperation I felt that back then because they:

a) Never talked about anything interesting. They only discussed someone's new clothes or ex boyfriend. Still the same. If you mention something more interesting they gaze at you as if you are insane and they do that with a very dumb face. Then they continue their ret*d conversation. I felt so lonely, I didn't even want to have friends if the conversation was on this level and so boring. This had the result I was a loner who was always drawing mazes, other things, solving Rubik's Cube and mostly reading.

b) Had such unfunny jokes. They were and are so ret*d, I can't seem to be able to laugh. Very predictable jokes and they still had fun for minutes.

c) Have and had an enormous lack of logics. Logically seen, almost everything people say is absolute nonsense, especially logically seen. They don't even notice it.

d) Had and have an extremely low level of conversation. They say the most stupid things, and never say something intelligent. REALLY dumb. Never something rational.

I can only advice you just to say your lines; That's what I do. Don't talk to them too much, or else it will become too much for you. Try to be interested or pretend to be.

Good luck

May be! In that case, I wish there were some more nerds to have small talk with!

I don't usually talk to people I don't know, unless I have a question to ask them.

It's easier to start small talk with my friends but it doesn't last long. I try to think of things to say even before I meet them. I just don't tell them things for days so when I finally meet up with them I have a few things to say. Only problem is it takes me awhile to remember exactly what I was going to say. And then once I've said it my mind is once again blank.

I've always sucked at small talk. If you don't have anything to say, why open your mouth at all? But it helps to get by in the world nonetheless. I'd like to share some tricks I've learned:

People are fundamentally vain. Ask them random questions about themselves. Where you do live? Do you like it there? What do you do for a living? What did you do last weekend? You don't have to actually be interested, just to feign interest. Most people love to talk about themselves; they're just waiting for someone to give them opportunity or permission.

Words matter less than you think. Timothy Leary said, "90% of human communication is: 'I'm still here. Are you still there?'". Most folks are dancing a ritual dance where words are ancillary; the other person simply wants you to acknowledge their existence with eye contact and other clues that you're paying attention to them. This may not help you on what to say, but it relieves some of the pressure to come up with something significant or clever.

Smile. It seems stupid, but it makes all the difference. Bonus points for smiling not just with your mouth, but your whole face. Humans are natural mimics: if you smile, they will tend to smile too. Your tone of voice also tends to change while you're smiling, and people will pick up on it. Practice in the mirror if you need to (I certainly have).

Engage their interests, or find common ground. There are also no hard and fast rules which demand you talk about the weather or the local sports team. Ask a few small-talk-y questions to get an idea of what they're into ("What do you do for a living?", "What do you do for fun?", "See any good movies lately?"), and then probe for details, especially if it's something you can relate to. As soon as you can fixate on a topic which you are both interested in, uncomfortable small talk ends and a real conversation with actual ideas begins.

It helps to have an "out". Even among regular folks, small talk doesn't always go very well. Having a pre-planned escape route out of awkward moments makes it easier to take the plunge in the first place. Cell phones are tops for this: In mid-sentence, stop abruptly as if the vibrate function is going off. Take it out of your pocket, glance at it, and say "I'm sorry, I really have to take this. Excuse me, please." Glancing at your watch and pretending to have to be someplace is also an oldie but a goodie.

Just say "hi". If you're approaching a stranger, it's actually perfectly acceptable to just walk up to somebody and say, "Hi, I'm _____. What's your name?", possibly following up with other random probing questions. It seems bizarre, but this is really very normal behavior, and almost nobody will think you odd for it.

Everybody's lying (at least a little bit), and everybody's insecure. Most people are too busy worrying about how they look to you, and whether you see through their mask or not, to probe very deeply into you. You'll feel like you're under a microscope, but you're usually not. Let the other party know that you're okay with them, and almost by reflex, they'll be okay with you.

Loving this site, I wish I'd known about years ago.

I have a degree in computer science, with a minor in math, but could have easily majored in math or physics. I think a lot of us here are like that with math type things. A math major is still really impressive I think, but for normal people I think it is even more so. From what I've heard, it is generally accepted that math is one of the hardest majors to go for.

Small talk is the bane of my existence.

For smiles, this is sort of what goes in my head when someone comes over and starts the small talk routine:

I'm not good at small talk either. Usually I just say, "What's up?" and hope the other person starts babbling on about their day or something, so I don't have to try and come up with a subject for conversation.