small talk for beginners

 You might have seen the blog post title and eagerly clicked on it hoping for some helpful tips and tricks to master small talk. Let me stop you right there because spoiler alert I'm autistic so I know less about how to tread these waters than the average person. I was in fact being funny with my blog title, a sarcasm if you will. 

I have always known that small talk was not my forte. It has always felt awkward, uncomfortable and just unnecessary. Other people seem to manage just fine while I struggled either seeming silent and shy or else I said the wrong thing or forgot to ask the right follow up questions. It was as though everyone was performing this social dance but no one had bothered to show me the steps. 

When I discovered I was autistic it was a little light bulb moment and I realised not only was there a clear reason for the way I felt around small talk but there was a whole tribe of neurodivergent people who felt the exact same way. This was actually incredibly reassuring in a way.

In a lot of ways much of allistic (that's non autistic ) communication still doesn't really make much sense to me. Starting out with same questions in each interaction and neither party actually seems that interested in the other persons answers but still we are obligated to ask the questions in return or we appear rude. I frequently forget to do this but I know better than to say oh I didn't ask about your weekend because I wasn't that interested in knowing how it went however if you would like to volunteer the information without me having to prompt you then I would be happy to listen.

I don't understand why we can't dive right into the interesting bits. Especially given that the correct answer to how are you ? is fine and you? and the look of abject horror you get when you reply honestly rather than the given script tells you it's not genuine interest in your welfare but social lubricant to get you through to the next stage of conversation.

I do have some set scripts I rely on for particular situations and I can get by on those until the person goes off script and hits me with a part I haven't gotten around to rehearsing in which case I go awkward and trail off or just go off script entirely and say what's actually on my mind which can be a risky move at the best of times. 

I'd like to propose we do away with some of the pointless small talk and we stop asking questions we don't really want to know the answer to and if you have something interesting to say then just say it rather waiting patiently for someone to cue you to talk about it. 

I'd prefer to know how you actually are and then move on to some mad story you read online or tik tok you thought I'd like or something really interesting you have recently learned instead of endlessly tip toing around the edges of an almost conversation until one of us either escapes or manages to level it up to something worth talking about. Just a thought