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On small talk.
So I see a lot of autistic people mention that they hate small talk. I happen to enjoy small talk, but I think my problem is that I enjoy it too much, so I’m constantly trying to initiate it with people in my day-to-day life. And I have no sense of when it’s appropriate or not to do that, especially at work. It’s maybe one of (if not my most) annoying autistic habits, because even I’ve noticed myself annoying people with it. And you know how bad it has to be for us to notice that we’re ACTUALLY annoying someone (rather than just paranoidly worrying that we are).
This has been especially a problem at work, though I’m trying to learn to restrain myself. I can’t tell when someone’s busy/occupied – or it doesn’t occur to me that people can’t talk and do something else at the same time – so I’ll just start asking them small talk questions while they’re trying to get something done. Before I realized that I was annoying other people with this, if they didn’t respond, instead of realizing that they were either ignoring me or too caught up in their task to hear me, I would simply repeat the question until they finally answered me.
A big step in personal character development was learning that if someone doesn’t answer when I ask a question, they either are ignoring me on purpose, or they’re so busy they didn’t hear me; ergo, it’s not an appropriate time to badger them with conversation. Now I need to work on actually realizing when people are busy or are not in a good place to talk so that this doesn’t become a problem to begin with.
Anyway, it’s bad. I swear someone could be bleeding to death on the ground in front of me, and instead of calling an ambulance, I’ll just be like, “So how’s your dog doing? Also, I love your jacket.”
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3 Replies
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I have this exact experience! And I see Yefet having it as well. Like, I’ll tell Yefet, look at me, look at me before you talk so you can decide if there’s something going on that’s more important than what you were going to say. And then they’ll say it right back to me — when I make the same mistake. It’s really difficult for me to stop what I was going to say and adjust to say something more appropriate to the situation. And sometimes I’m like, well, I’m saying something that is sort of appropriate so it’s okay. But after the fact it’s so clear that sort of appropriate is NOT appropriate.
I also have this in our building elevator. I’m amazed at how much time there is in that ride up to exhibit terrible social skills. Zehavi and I play a game where one of us talks and sees if we can look normal for the full 50 second ride. I never do it. The last time we played — yesterday morning — I was so giddy at how well I did that when the person left I said, “Have a good evening.”
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” I happen to enjoy small talk, but I think my problem is that I enjoy it too much, so I’m constantly trying to initiate it with people in my day-to-day life. And I have no sense of when it’s appropriate or not to do that”
Omg you just described my mom. She’s an ENFP and loves to chat even when people are politely signaling for her to go away. Most people don’t mind it though because she’s very bubbly and pretty and has a valley girl accent so she fits the dim blonde stereotype (she’s actually very intelligent). And yes, we could be trapped in a burning building and she would still find time to chit chat.
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I do that now at the baby centre 🙁
I tell every staff about the baby sleep schedule and how her teething is doing. I think they are trying to walk away and i dont let them leave to tend to other parents. I go from having nothing to say in all silence or verbal diarrhea. there’s nothing in between.