When to Shut up

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I have a problem with knowing when to shut up. I can recognize when someone is distracted or bored, but usually it is too late. I just keep talking though and I can't shut up. The more a person appears to withdraw the more I talk. I hate it, but am at a loss to shut my diahrrea (sp?) mouth. This is one of the aspects of AS that I hate the most. I know people, particularly members of my family, would wish I would shut up, but the only way that happens if I don't engage in a conversation to begin with.

I find small talk annoying and a total bore. Unfortunately, being married to a banker, I have to go to a lot of social occasions and those things completely stress me out. I really don't say much at those things, b/c I am afraid of offending someone and/or getting my husband fired, G-d forbid.

Does anyone have strategies which work for them? Am I doomed?

tallgirl

Practicing in a mirror. Daydreaming my way thru conversations. I will often "prep" for an event - by reading about what the latest movie is or hot music, that sort of "pop culture" nonsense. And try to find something I enjoy about it. Then practice asking others open ended questions about it: what did you like about x, what do you think of y. And then - listen. If they wind down, I'll add a single sentence (I consciously limit myself to one observation), then ask them something about what they said.

Encouraging NTs to talk about themselves and their opinions (even when they're stupid, malformed, baseless, and annoying) is a great way to become popular. If you disagree with something - don't point out how stupid they're being, ask them "Really? What leads you to that conclusion?" or "Oh. I never thought of it that way. Why do you think that?"

Social occasions with the spouse are when I consider myself to be "on stage" as it were. It helps to have that attitude. No one there cares about me - they only care about themselves. So I work on it that way. Sometimes, afterwards, I'll make little notes in my daytimer or palmpilot of things that they said so I can refresh my memory before I have to deal with them again. People think I'm this "outgoing social butterfly". I'm actually pretty good as a hostess now. I've had to do it for a few years. But it's so hard. I would always be really stressed afterward.

Another thing that really helped, was to volunteer - go offer to help do something. If you're busy folding or carrying or stuff like that, nobody expects you to be conversing. You can become very "popular" by just volunteering. People will think you're wonderful. It'll be good for your husband's career and you'll feel less scared. Or well, I did anyway.

I know EXACTLY how you feel here. A lot of people make me feel like a complete bastard for this tendency. Ex girlfriends have used it against me as a negative aspect of my personality and friends have victimised me for it.

I guess tolerance is an unknown term in the NT world.

The eyes always look where they want to go...if someone starts to keep looking to the side of you more frequently, then that means they want to get out of the conversation. Aspies are more funny though with eye contact, so I wouldn't place that rule on most of them.

Anyway, when you see this...then it's time to change the subject.

That's an excellent tip, thank you very much for sharing, smudge ! !! I'll start applying it as of tomorrow on the trip I'm going.

What I've been doing lately is try not to say all that I have to say together. I say one part, check if the person adds their own contribution to the conversation, and if not then I don't continue with the topic or the conversation.

That's exactly how I cope with social situations, so I'm usually in the group of people organizing things, like events. It's awesome - I can keep small talk short, and everybody will just assume I'm very busy with things, and won't feel insulted. And, of course, people who help are usually popular. I ended up being head girl at school.

As for the conversation thing: Fortunately, in most cases I do realize when someone is bored or uncomfortable with a topic. I pay attention to what they are replying - if they talk a lot about some topic and reply to what you say, they're most likely interested in talking to you. (Or good at pretending.) If they don't reply much and try to avoid eye contact, they're disinterested and want to get out of the conversation. (Of course, that only applies to NT people. It's one of the main misunderstandings, I guess. Most AS people give off these social signals even when they are in fact not disinterested.)

I've never been able to adequately read that sort of situation. So I compensate by limiting what I say, keeping it as short as possible; and generally avoid initiating conversations. I don't always succeed and sometimes find myself running off at the mouth; but mostly I do okay.

It usually happens to me for one of 2 reasons--

I'm talking to fill an uncomfortable silence.

In this instance, a conversation seems to be getting nowhere and I don't know how to gracefully exit the interaction. I've learned how to curb this tendancy a bit at work for the sake of my job, but I haven't balanced it in casual social interaction.

or

I'm verbally working out my thoughts.

I'm one of those people who can't work something out unless the abstract is translated by my brain into something concrete, whether it be writing or speaking. When someone presents a question or problem that I have to help to solve, I end up verbally spilling all the surrounding solving process, totally confusing my listener. I've explained this phenomenon to my co-workers, and they're used to it by now. I suppose they put up with it because they always know I come up with the right answer. I'm a bit of a departmental expert, 2nd to our team lead. I think if I weren't so good at my job, people wouldn't be so tolerant of it. My closest friends have also adapted to my mental processing quirk. Strangers? Not so much. Usually annoys the Hell out of them.

I know exactly what you mean. I get the urge to share something, and never know when someone is being polite or is actually interested.

My friend at school has this habit of just sitting there in silence while I am the only one talking. My friend at my old school did the same to a lesser extent - but at least she would laugh/reply/tell me to talk quieter in all the right places. But when someone isn't reacting at all, I don't know when to shut up!

It could be possible, of course, that she is just fed up of hearing about Italy. I think EVERYONE's getting fed up of hearing about Italy, actually, it's the main thing that I talk about, LOL.

Still. If people would just tell me when I'm starting to get annoying, I'd try my best to talk about something else. I'm not a mindreader.