No small talk skills

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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?

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♡

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.

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.

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.

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.

I've always had the usual small talk phrases memorized, but I never knew how to translate that to an actual conversation

I can't handle that.

Yeah.. small talk, for many years , I was taught not to judge . But I kept running into disparate people whom seemed to absolutely needed to engage in small talk. Often, I went to immediate judgement that these people were absolutely as shallow as their communication. So I would quietly excuse myself,from their presence. This often caused me to be rather quiet in most all social situations.(mostly ones I could not escape).Why would you not share and support info.
Or ask questions to help discern better useable info. based on experiences or research .That could be useful physically or otherwise .And why would you not want to provide helpful info. to help any human to advance their lot in life. But this is NOT the case in NT small talk .Its all about emotional . Relating with people and guaging safety to open up about Anything . And to some degree can understand that.But I have often detected subtle efforts to immediately dominate even the most minimal small talk .(possibly with demeaning intent). Often my brain detects threats from unfamiliar persons in initial meetings. Prolly PTSD reaction. But I will use humour to immediately shut down their demeaning initial statements .
Have after 60+ years of life am able to cope with some small talk, even if engaging someone for the first time,can pretext initial small talk on a limited basis.But it gets old quickly .

I can do small talk but I find it boring and pointless. Instead I try to find something interesting about a person and ask them about that. That way I get genuinly interested and don't have to fake. And most people like to talk about themselves.

Small talk is a social convention among people.

A lot of people have difficulty with silence. It makes them feel uncomfortable or anxious and so they engage in discussions about unimportant things in order to fill the silence.

Small talk is also a way of sounding out people in an unfamiliar environment. It enables people to enage with others without feeling nervous, and the small talk will expand into more detailed conversations as a conversation progresses.

People love talking about themselves. Think of what interests you. If I met you at a party, you're not talking to anyone because you can't do small talk and I introduced myself and asked you what you did for fun you'd tell me. You'd explain all about it, and then as the conversation slowed down I'd ask you specific questions about different parts of your hobby and then you'd talk about those too. If more people came into the conversation and they had the same interest, suddenly you would be in a social group at a party with everyone talking about what you love. You'd leave the party having had a fun time. All I would have done is ask you what you did for fun then periodically asked you some questions so you would do all the talking.

Using scripts is difficult because people can talk about anything and so conversations can deviate away from your scripts very quickly and you can find yourself lost.

I might ask a question, have something explained to me and whilst they are explaining things to me I think about what other questions I can ask about what they're telling me and I have them ready if the conversation slows down.

Practice on uber drivers. Ask them if they like working for uber, what they like about it, what are the downsides, they'll all be self employed so you can ask if they work directly for uber or are self employed (the aim is to have a conversation. It's okay to ask questions where you already know the answer, provided they don't know that), when they say self employed you can ask what it's like being self employed. Ask what they did before they were an uber driver and then you can have a conversation about whatever that is.

The good thing about practicing with uber drivers is that they're concentrating on the road so not focusing all their attention on you, if you stall in the conversation then it's perfectly normal to sit in the back of the car and not talk, the journey is a short one so if you screw up then you won't be in the car for long, and you will likely never see them again. You can also use the same opening questions for each Uber driver whilst you get some practice in and then you can vary your questions to see how that goes.

I can do it, I just hate it so I don't. If I'm meeting someone new, I don't care about what they do for work so I'm not going to ask it. No matter what they say, the answer will be neither relevant, interesting or provide me with beneficial information. It's kind of weird. I'm not shy or afraid to make small talk. More like I'm morally opposed to it.

I have this problem generally too, especially in work. I know that if I don't make endless phone calls I risk being sacked but I'm incapable of just making calls for the sake of making calls. There is no purpose to it. My neurotypical friends say to just make the calls regardless but there is something in me that just point blank refuses, even though I know the ultimate consequences are disastrous