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Highly_Autistic
Deinonychus
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28 Jun 2024, 4:48 pm

I can't do it well and not i'm not that witty.

How am I gonna have some success in this life as such?



MoeTrashPanda
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28 Jun 2024, 5:15 pm

Small talk definitely isn't my favorite thing to do. I have to put on almost a customer service mask to get through it.

I also have to prepare/memorize internal and/or external scripts. I will also write down topics to talk about sometimes.

I've noticed that people like when you ask them questions about themselves. Here are some good small talk questions in my repertoire:

"What did you do this weekend/any weekend plans?"
"How are you today?"
"Do you have any pets/how are your pets doing?"
"Have you been working on any projects lately?"
"Whats new with you?"

Usually people like when you show interest in their lives, and will usually ask the question back to you.

The more you are willing to put yourself out there and practice, the better you will get. You just have to try. It will be a mental effort, but if you really want to get/feel better, you have to put in the work. Goodluck!! ʕ -ᴥ•ʔ♡


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autisticelders
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30 Jun 2024, 3:01 pm

I'm not good at it, but I learned situational scripts, and that helps.

Over the years I have got better with practice.

I never understood I needed these skills until I retired from work at age 65 and got my autism diagnosis at age 68. suddenly so much of my messed up past finally made sense. If I had practiced those skills, got my scripts going sooner, I might have been more comfortable in my own skin in many situations that I failed at all those years ago.

I couldn't "network" my way out of a paper bag, let alone in professional groups or other gatherings that some people "use" to make "social progress".
But that has never been a goal. I think a lot of us choose other paths than the highly social ones or ones that require a lot of sensitive interactions. Even in your chosen field, whatever it is, there will be places where we might fit in without having to have highly develop "chit chat" skills.


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JamesW
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12 Jul 2024, 3:48 am

For me, the key to small talk is that it's just a social convention, and generally completely meaningless. Before I was diagnosed autistic, I didn't understand why I would instinctively have trouble with that. (Why ask someone how they are when you don't care, and when you already know you're not going to get an honest answer from them anyway?)

Scripting is hard for me. I don't always trust the script, and I don't always remember it. (That isn't just an ND thing. Go into any chain restaurant and ask for something that isn't on the menu.)

Like others have said, take an interest in the other person, ask about them and their lives. As an autistic person I'm inclined to talk about myself all the time.

I am prone to panic when I've met someone before and can't remember them. I've learned to ask generic things (e.g. 'How are you? How long is it since we last saw each other?), to get them to take the lead and remind me who they are!

A few things which have helped me:

1. Semantics. Don't call it small talk. Call it 'pleasantries'. A 'pleasant' thing is something which is non-essential but makes people's lives just a little bit happier. For me, that helps to take the pressure off. (Example: a 'pleasant' smell is like an air freshener in a toilet - slightly better than neutral, but not overwhelming. I can think of small talk like that air freshener, instead of thinking of it - like I am prone to do - as like having to throw a barbecue for all the neighbours and their friends who I've never met.)

2. Paranoia avoidance. When a workmate asks 'How was your weekend?', they are not trying to undermine my work-life balance, nor are they going to tell me how much more interesting their life is than mine. It's just pleasantries (see above) and for the most part they're entirely uninterested in my answer.

3. No requirement of honesty. Recently, an annoying manager took charge of a work meeting, in absence of his superior, and proceeded to go round the room asking everyone what they did over the weekend. I made something up, suitably generic and inoffensive (did the shopping, watched the football, planned a holiday, etc.). I'd actually spent a large part of the weekend helping out a friend who was in trouble, but I didn't have to tell him that. Nor, incidentally, did I have to make up anything inappropriate (e.g. that I'd been to a sex orgy) in order to shut him up.

4. Awareness that I do have some instincts in common with NTs.
(a) I once met a messed-up NT who unwittingly helped me. I asked them 'How are you?' and they replied something like 'Well, I'm dealing with my abandonment issues, but by nurturing my inner child I will regain my self-belief'. I immediately heard myself thinking 'Er, you're supposed to just say "Fine! How are you?"'
(b) I once went to a job interview for a tech post. I sat down, and the interviewer neither greeted me nor introduced himself; instead, he said 'What skills did you employ the most in your last position?' As an autistic person I might have expected to be refreshed by such an approach. Instead I found it not only inappropriate but offensive. (I didn't pursue the job any further.)

5. Watching 'Selling Sunset'. Yes, seriously. Small talk doesn't get any smaller than this. 'Hiiiiiiiii! How AAAAAARE yeeeeou! Grrreat! Yeeeahh! Wow! How are YEEEEOU! Yeeeeaaahh! Greeeat! Woooow!' In the wild, zebras identify each other by sniffing each other's groins. This is just the NT equivalent.



UHyperZero
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06 Aug 2024, 7:24 am

For me "small talk" is just a BS that I will never understand the purpose... It's useless in every sense!
Most people spend most of their time just doing that... people could be doing anything more useful.


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Benjamin the Donkey
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06 Aug 2024, 11:33 am

I used to use scripts largely from movies /TV. Now I'm done with that BS. I'll cut through the small talk to something more substantial. It helps to filter out the people I don't want to know anyway.


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