Aspie and NT communication patterns

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OH GOD- I do this alllllllll of the time.

Warning: Wall of txt ahead (I always talk in these monologues.... my bad!!)

After seeing someone get a bit hurt about me not remembering their last name (I knew other stuff about them! I'm just horrible with foreign last names!!) and then someone else being offended that I couldn't remember what flowers they were planting based on our last convo they got slightly sad/offended/surprised. It was then I realized that NT talk ISN'T just for like "hearing themselves talk about nothing". I really thought that NTs just talked about nothing; and also nothing more than information was being exchanged/nothing OTHER THAN information was taken from a convo... and that they just liked to "talk mindlessly".
I was blown away to find out they:
1.) Expect you to remember s**t
2.) Had other meanings/motives for such small talk
3.) Were secretly exchanging other meanings by performing said "small talk" (I say performing because it's like a dance really)
4.) Wanted something other than pure information.

I still marvel at this and a few other ideas. I would engage in small talk very often, and I would try not to stab myself in the face with the nearby sporks at the lunch counter out of sheer and utter soul-crushing boredom. I wanted to be polite- I really did, but then I gave up, and thought- man one day, I will die- and if I have to waste even one more second talking to this lady about how every other year she rotates between tulips and gardenias in her garden or that she has to clean her pool this weekend- and ugh that will just take so much time and she has to go to home depot because when she went to lowes they didn't have the chlorine tabs with the high enough percentage for her pool- I thought ... the quote:
"Hell is other people" fit my feelings perfectly. I also thought- this is SO not worth it. Diminishing returns for like every second after t=5 secs after the start of a small talk conversation.

I HATE SMALL TALK
I just dislike talking in general if it isn't substantive or meaningful or intellectual or abstract/interesting to me.
I die a little bit on the inside listening to people talk about stupid dull or inane stuff- just too boring and I don't care.
Of course I don't mention or say any of that... but it's how I feel on the inside.
Also, if this were like one person once a day then eh maybe- but you have to look at the scope of the problem- EVERY SINGLE f*****g PERSON is like this that I encounter EVERY DAMN DAY- it's like ... idk,

Imagine you had a reallly unpleasant job- like mucking horse s**t out of stalls- and you were okay with it- didn't come naturally at first, but over the years of doing this unpleasant thing- you get used to it build up tolerance for said s**t; however, it becomes an issue when every person wants you to muck their stall, not just once or twice but every time and maybe for more than one horse! And only occassionally or rarely do you have the pleasure of what you really like about that job- playing with the horses or brushing them down in a clean stall afterwards, but it almost never happens because alas that is your lot in life- & you just don't like horse s**t.

And I mean we are all horse owners, and we all like horses, BUT somehow NTs just loooooove mucking (maybe because they need to and they like clean stalls & horses too), and Aspies generally don't (they just like horses). And if this metaphor seems far-fetched, and "nothing like small talk- it's not THAT bad."
Well, then I would say that's the point exactly- that's what it's like- for me anyway.
I recognize everyone's different, but small talk and not-special interest talk especially repeatedly or when overwhelmed is similarly near-thankless drudgery.

I'm gathering that you probably haven't tried Meetup, or other types of groups where people who share common interests/purpose meet as strangers to do things. Then there's also networking socials, where the same thing happens for different reasons. Sometimes, the group norm is to start talking about the common interest, and it can be hard to move on from there. I know the dynamic is different; it's the result of busy, disconnected people artificially coming together to share a particular interest.

Really, I know for a fact this one isn't just me. It seems that the only way friendships go far beyond the common interests of these groups is when people finally decide it's cool to ask questions, have less restricted conversations, and open up about who they are as people. Even more than that, as you said, they have to desire the give-and-take of friendship in the first place.

You made me laugh!
Back to serious now - don't ever date an NT female.

Wow Unfortunate_Aspie_, you have me cracking up. But you know, for every topic that you or I would consider small talk, there's someone who's fascinated by it. Amazing, isn't it? You seem to have all the luck, always running into these people every day LOL. They usually change the subject after a minute with me, *shrug*.

I did a meetup group - knitting and crocheting. After a couple times I ended up leaving and never going back - the main woman who started the group couldn't keep her questions only on knitting. She kept asking me about my job, my school, saying how nurses aren't really that smart, etc. By the time she was done with me, I would have welcomed a room full of Aspies with no small talk. NT's can just be asses sometimes.

I live for those deep, intellectual conversations. That said, I need emotional connections with close friends also; they make me feel understood, and they're part of what makes my life worth living. I get the sense those connections are different for you, right?

JBW, it sounds like you manage to avoid a lot of confrontation and workplace politics. Like you, I hate workplace politics, and people also appreciate my questions outside of the traditional employee role.

You are so analytical, probably more so than I am. Yet, you say you can clear your head and enjoy the windsurf for a few hours. How do you do that? How do you get out of your own head and into that space where you all just enjoy the experience? If you can, maybe I will, too, in time.

Or, do you not clear your head at all, and just choose not to talk?

NurseAngela, re: your Meetup, sounds like you had the opposite experience, where the woman wouldn't stop asking you questions that weren't about knitting. Yikes, LOL. That's awful; it takes all kinds I guess. Try a few more groups, and I bet you'll see or experience some of what I've mentioned.

Yep....viewtopic.php?f=3&t=87241

It's mind boggling. I've heard conversations between other people that to me sounded like pure gibberish, but it seemed to mean something to them. I've also said things to people that were very meaningful to me and seemed like they just glossed over it and responded with something very superficial.

And yeah #1 is what throws me the most. I can't remember all those details people say about things that are going on in their life, or the story they told me about what happened years ago or whatever else it is they think is supposed to be a sign of how much I care. I literally can NOT do it even if I try. I can barely remember what I myself did yesterday. And sometimes sadly I just do not recognize people or remember their names.

I'm good with small talk when it is all about the here-and-now, or just prattling on about something that interests me, or else I can nod my head and murmur politely while someone else talks. But I can't pick the thread back up later if much time had passed the next time we talk, it's like starting all over again.

Actually, the intellectual conversations are highly emotional for me, because I deeply care about the topic as well as all the people who are similarly passionate about the same topic, especially those who I am fortunate enough to get to know.

I am fascinated if someone else has arrived at similar insights on a topic, and then I want to hear about their journey, to understand their specific context and experiences. This is how humans learn, and this is how I relate to others. By openly sharing experiences people become more aware of the validity and potential limitations of their mental models, and these models get updated in the process.


I live to appreciate nature, and to learn and share knowledge. Life is way too precious to be wasted on power politics. I relate to people via very basic values, and not via social status or conformance to a particular culture. Emotional bonds can be created in multiple ways, not just via the route that is intuitive for NTs.


I regularly need to switch between intellectual work and windsurfing and other physical activity. Ideally one dose of exhausting physical activity per day to recharge the mental batteries, and then back to thinking, to recharge the physical batteries.

Being out on the water is like being in some kind of meditative state, where I live entirely in a world of non-social sensory inputs. At work I'm now running a routine where I don't respond to emails and message on two days per week, so that interruptions and social interactions are largely confined to three days per week. Weekend is Aspie family time, reading books plus discussion and monologues on special interests.

The social schedule that other people operate is incomprehensible to me. When I come back from a week of business related travel and interactions, I am half dead.

If the outlook is bleak, in my experience the best approach is not to try and change/conform, but to focus on finding ways to change the environment. It's not possible without assistance, but over the course of years and decades, and with Aspie perseverance, it is not impossible to find others with whom it becomes possible. Life can be crap at times, but it can also be amazing.

The book "Women From Another Planet" references this topic from an ASD perspective rather than a normative one, reminding us that what you see depends on where you stand:

“Among ourselves we can communicate well ‘live’ too. Not bound by NT social protocol, we tend to talk very directly, relying on words (rather than nonverbal cues), and content (rather than personality), with a distinctive rhythm whereby we tend to say the whole of what we want to convey as a unit then wait for the other’s response. Rather than smalltalk, either meaningful conversation or comfortable silence generally prevails.

It can be a sobering experience for an NT to attend an event where AS style prevails. Here, it might be the NT who seems odd or rude, with their characteristic interruptions, trivial remarks, constant changes of topic, bizzare habit of staring into the eyes, excessive face and body movements, and tedious NT difficulty appreciating and coping with silence or solitude. It might be the NT who appears to suffer a triad of impairments.” (P. 29)

That is very interesting.

I'm understanding how Aspies communicate, so how do they make friends when there is not much discussion? Do Aspies make close friendships with other Aspies or do you need an NT in the process to kind of get things rolling?

Common interests have bonded my friendships with other HFAs, and discussions on these are exciting to both participants, in my own experience. For instance, science and literature are two of my particular interests, often close to the HFA heart and soul. There's no problem having these discussions as a basis for developing friendship IF you can find the people to have them with - that's the ASD problem, because we prefer (generally) not to go looking in the same contexts as NTs for congenial others - we generally hate noisy parties, crowded nightclubs, sports clubs, bars (though there are always exceptions to these of course). For example, I have found ASD friendships in the following contexts:

at the Social Anxiety meet-up I belong to
animal rescue things (societies, events, volunteers)
in academia
at public events - films/meetings, seminars on scientific breakthroughs, political protests, writers' festivals, special interest groups, and - last but not least -
Wrong Planet

yes, ... and typically this conviction is linked to the anthropocentric assumption that humans somehow represent the pinnacle of evolution.

Humans have a really had time grasping concepts such as distributed intelligence and non-hierarchical forms of organisation and communication, as for example used by plants and fungi. You might enjoy reading http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/ ... gent-plant. Here is a good introductory book on the topic http://www.islandpress.org/book/brilliant-green.

I am almost never the one to initiate a friendship. Here are how I became friends with some of my friends (in no particular order):

Friend 1; probably not an aspie but very introverted. Our parents are good friends so we saw each other a lot and became friends. Our relationship probably most resembles the aspie-NT collaboration. We mostly joke around and talk about random subjects.

Friend 2; has a lot of autistic tendencies but is probably not diagnosable. He is the one who initiated it by approaching me and starting conversations, and he chose me of all people because he is very weird and tends to get along well with other weird people like me. Our relationship most resembles the aspie-aspie collaboration. Our conversations are mostly about whatever topic one of up decides to bring up, and we are OK with just about anything because we both suck at starting conversations.

Friend 3; diagnosed aspie. Our parents knew each other and our friendship was sort of arranged, our parents (correctly) thought that we would enjoy the company of another aspie. Our relationship most resembles the aspie-aspie special interest collaboration. We usually talk about our shared interests (space travel and politics).

Friend 4; has a lot of autistic tendencies but probably not diagnosable, he has some other mental illnesses and disorders though. We met on a forum about one of my special interests on a thread about my short-term obsession at that time. Our relationship most resembles the aspie-aspie mind meld. We talk about everything from gaming to science to emotions.

Friend 5; She is a NT that I dated for a while. We met because we were assigned as partners in a class who were basically forced to talk to each other. Our relationship most resembles the aspie-NT misunderstanding. Needless to say, it didn't go very well and there wasn't much we could talk about.

Interesting book you've read, B19. I'm having trouble quoting, keep getting Kaptcha. I've rarely had a conversation with the rhythm the book describes, because if one or both of us isn't engaged for a long period of time, it might be harder to focus. I find that back-and-forth usually works best in my conversations, although sometimes I interrupt at the wrong moment. Interrupting a story, or the explanation of a basic concept, doesn't work too well either, I've found.

The book mentions difficulty handling solitude or silence. I'm happy being silent or being alone if I'm reading, writing, or playing a solitary game, or thinking/planning something. If I start worrying though, or if I feel really depressed, it's often best for me to talk with someone rational or funny.

By contrast, I'm happy with others when we're engaged in interesting conversation, having fun, or if I'm with a close friend sharing jokes, stories, or even talking about our feelings in some cases. People can often cheer me up actually.

The problems happen if I'm feeling frustrated/overwhelmed, even for a moment. If the feelings come on suddenly, I might blurt out the wrong thing.

I never quite know when a regular conversation might turn into a difficult or delicate one either, and someone takes offense. Especially with strong opinions or personal topics, I try to be on guard, thinking before I speak, but not always successful. It's better to do that in writing: take the time to breathe, try different ways of saying something, imagine how the person might feel/react, ETC. I have to really work at that.

What do you all think about conversation rhythm, solitude, ETC? Do your social missteps happen in similar situations?

“Among ourselves we can communicate well ‘live’ too. Not bound by NT social protocol, we tend to talk very directly, relying on words (rather than nonverbal cues), and content (rather than personality)..."
Sounds a lot like the way I communicate, though I don't understand the part about personality.

JBW,

I think I understand; we both care about others and want to know about their journeys, how they came to know what they know. That can be interesting and exciting, and it's different from the sharing of feelings that I described. I find I like both approaches. I also relate to your comments about living to learn and share knowledge, and hating to waste time on social politics.

I can never seem to stay in that meditative state you describe for very long. Either my own thoughts or social concerns pull me out. That said, if others are talking, laughing, and living in the moment, it's a bit easier for me to let other unrelated thoughts go. Any suggestions?

About being half dead after a week of business travel/conferences, I can certainly understand that. My feelings aren't quite that clear cut though. There are times when I feel energized talking with others, and other times when I feel absolutely drained. Your solution of restricting social interaction to certain days of the week, is it as rigid as that, or just a guideline that you follow?

I also like your balance of physical activity vs. thinking. I'll remember that the next time I don't feel like exercising. Sounds like in many cases, "the outlook is bleak" only if you think it is.

You mentioned changing the environment, and not just changing yourself, when things aren't working. I don't usually think like that. Maybe different environments affect me more than I realize.

Thanks again for sharing; you've had a unique and interesting journey so far, and you are very insightful.