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Why autism and small talk are polar opposites.

1/8/2018

12 Comments

 
Autistic people hate small talk, is something I've heard repeated countless times by both autistic and non-autistic people

However in settings such as AutAngels peer support groups and Autscape, which are wholly or predominantly autistic, you’ll see lots of people chatting away (as well as people standing awkwardly in corners). I've long puzzled over seeing autistic people who swear they hate small talk having conversations that sound to me like small talk in autistic settings.
Looking up small talk on the internet I find it defined as “polite conversation about unimportant or uncontroversial matters, especially as engaged in on social occasions” and “an informal type of discourse that does not cover any functional topics of conversation or any transactions that need to be addressed.” Wikipdedia's article on Small Talk  explains that “In spite of seeming to have little useful purpose, small talk is a bonding ritual and a strategy for managing interpersonal distance. It serves many functions in helping to define the relationships between friends, colleagues, and new acquaintances.”  

These definitions make clear in different ways that the content of small talk is not the point.   The point is a desire to connect.   For most autistic people however, the point of a conversation is the content.   If the content is engaging they will connect, content leads to connection. It seems that for many NT’s (neurotypical or non-autistic people) connection comes before content, so they connect with contentless conversation and if that works they will move on to sharing meaningful content.

As well as establishing connection in contrasting ways it seems that the average NT probably wants more superficial connection with other humans than the average autistic person, and they signal the desire to connect by sharing inconsequential chatter.  

Most of us autistics want language to be used to mean what it says not as a backdrop to an invisible social signal. So when NT’s use random thoughts to try connect with another person it can work well with fellow NT’s but tends to fail with autistics as we need meaningful content and can get stressed by a feeling that we are expected to share meaningless trivialities (added to which as we have no idea what is acceptable to say and what could trigger an adverse reaction, we feel that we’re being invited into a minefield). Before we speak we need to either be interested in the subject we are speaking about or the person we are talking to.  

So while in an autistic setting (or any setting where they feel safe) many autistic people will ask after someone else’s family or discuss travel arrangements, because they are genuinely interested and connected. This can give the impression of being small talk, but in fact its meaningful  because of the prior connection of the participants. The interaction does not create the connection, it happens because of it.

My contention is that NTs will talk about inconsequential matters to create connection while autistics will only do so when they already feel connected.  Social skills courses which teach people that they should talk about the weather are teaching masking not connection.

If we repeat stock phrases because we've been taught that's what you're supposed to do it’s likely to feel unnatural, appear stilted and require lots of effort and energy leaving us feeling depleted and unable to actually listen and respond to the other person’s reply. Masking causes disconnection rather than connection so shouldn’t really be considered a social skill. (There is currently a social media campaign urging people to #Take the Mask Off).

Discovering that I am autistic led me to better understand what was going on socially for me and for others and enabled me to make choices based on this.  I now find it much easier to engage in casual conversation because I’ve found a compromise, I do it my way, I don’t, as I used to, try and immediately dive into deep discussions, but I do connect by talking lightly about everyday matters that interest me but are unlikely to evoke deep feelings.

12 Comments
Planet Autism
4/8/2018 06:49:48 pm

Spot on Caroline, exactly right. Some of the most cringey moments are going to the hairdresser and whilst their armpit is in your face and the water is too hot and they're saying "are you having a holiday this year" (what difference does it make to them if you are, they don't know you), or in a situation where you are waiting and someone else is waiting and they feel the urge to say "nice day today isn't it". It seems so pointless and inane and it's so awkward, as you don't know them at all and there is no reason to get to know them. Whatever is wrong with comfortable silences!

Reply
Caroline Hearst
5/8/2018 07:13:43 pm

I'm glad we're on the same page about this Planet Autism.

Reply
Ruth B
5/8/2018 03:25:34 pm

I have quite vivid memories of a comprehension gap when I was a child: I had no idea why everyone was asking each other where they went on holiday, because I didn't think it was very likely that any random pair of people had gone to the same place. Meanwhile I couldn't understand why people ignored me while I was reading a book: the contents of the school library and what was on TV were a more revealing start to a conversation, to me, because it said more about the person and it was likelier that the other person had access to the same books and programmes.

I've never "masked" to a significant degree myself, despite it being assumed that autistic women do. (I've heard it described as "mirroring", but I assume it's the same thing).

Reply
Caroline Hearst
5/8/2018 07:19:26 pm

You obviously thought about subjects of small talk more deeply than I did! I just felt horrible when people I didn't know spoke to me and couldn't see the point of talking about anything I wasn't interested in.

I rather dislike masking as a term applied to autistic women. For one thing I think the actual reason autistic women are less often diagnosed is because diagnosticians expect autistic people to be male - in this case "masking" is a blame the victim thing - many men also hide their autism.
I actually think masking is someone everyone does sometimes in social situations to fit in, it would be impossible for communities to operate effectively if everyone just behaved how they felt like behaving, what some autistic people specifically do is pretend to be NT, which I see as being different to masking.

Reply
Anna link
27/8/2018 10:42:37 pm

Same here... I can see now that I've done masking in some (dysfunctional) ways as an adults in my desperation to try to find a social "shelf" where I could be (didn't succeed at it anyway)... but I wasn't a masker as a kid or teenager. In hindsight my big problem, especially as I became a teenager, was that everyone else around me were extremely proficient at masking and did it all the time, while I didn't grasp the concept, so I didn't develop the skill and fell through socially being "different", "weird", "naive" (and on a positive note:) "just being yourself" (I didn't get why people would tell me that. "Being myself", who else would I be? Of course any person is being themselves, who else? Totally meaningless comment)

Reply
Karen Gray
6/8/2018 02:44:11 am

I have always been good at chatting to new people and have been wondering why I was different.
I realise I had learned that small Talk was a prerequisite for getting to know people. So I tolerated it because there was an end goal - getting to know someone better.
I genuinely believed this small talk was part 1 of a process.

I’ve often been confused why with some people the process never continued. Why were things staying superficial.

It’s only since diagnosis I’ve learned that this is because it is small talk ! There is no further point.

Since I no longer believe the friendly chat is designed to help us connect further, I’m no longer interested!

So I too am now intolerant in situations that require small talk . I can’t do it if there’s no point and now I realise in most settings there is no point.

Im now caught. I miss the conversations I had with complete strangers but I’m less disappointed than connection doesn’t develop.

In some ways this makes me feel more alone. I didn’t appreciate how different I was before - especially as my best friends do like intense conversations- but I can now be more discerning about who I share with.

I’ve been most affected in a church setting where I assumed people were open and honest and interested. Discovering that they are not has been very helpful but very painful .

Reply
Caroline Hearst
6/8/2018 09:24:11 pm

Hmm, that's interesting. Maybe its necessary but not sufficient to create a further connection. Maybe sometimes small talk leads to larger talk (for want of a better expression) but other times a brief connection is all that is wanted. I think there are different stages of relationships that require different skills, and my guess is that while NT's are likely to have the same level of proficiency at all stages autistic people are more likely to be able to manage some stages better than others, but because all stages are required, we find connecting more difficult.

Reply
Naughty Autie
10/8/2018 02:08:30 pm

Correction, NT does ^not^ mean non-autistic. Allistic does. For example, a man I know who's schizophrenic and has OCD (his preferred language) isn't neurotypical because neither schizophrenia nor OCD are considered 'normal', but he isn't autistic either.

Reply
Caroline Hearst
14/8/2018 06:56:42 pm

You are of course right, NT is literally Neurotypical, and not all non-autistic people are neurotypical. However NT is used so often within circles that discuss autism to mean non-autistic, and I have an aversion to describing people in terms of a negative that I choose to use it despite it not being technically correct. The thing about Allistic as a term is that it even less in general usage than NT.

Reply
Julie
28/8/2018 03:00:56 am

Small talk has many roles, depending on the situation. Really it is misleading to describe it as small talk since that suggests it is is trivial when it's not. The hairdresser is generally encouraged as part of their job to chat with clients. Small talk can be a way of testing the water...seeing if people want to talk further. Us NTs generally find silences uneasy.

Reply
KuraIthys
30/8/2018 01:20:40 pm

That is unfortunate. I've run into that with a bunch of people though - family in particular.
Whenever I'm nearby they feel obligated to talk endlessly, and I have to resist the urge to tell them to shut up.
Sometimes I don't feel like talking to someone, but I feel like it's expected.
Spending time with someone to me, doesn't require spending every second chatting endlessly to fill every single void, but it often appears that this is how a lot of people behave.
Frequently in large doses it starts to drive me insane, but it doesn't seem like I can say that to someone, much less get them to understand...

Reply
Caroline Hearst
18/9/2018 04:16:18 pm

This is interesting in that I think that people have many different reasons for talking, some as you suggest just can't tolerate silence, others are searching for attention. Its unfortunate that your family doesn't seem to appreciate your wish to be with them yet not constantly talked at.




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