Image: 3 panel stick figure comic. The first two is of the same person smiling. The last one if the person with a troubled face and has "realization" written above.
The last time this happened was when I realized that people ask me questions about how I know things to start a conversation, not because they want to know how I know things. Example: https://lemmy.autism.place/post/116248
What???!???!? Why didn't anyone tell me this?
I speculate that since this is automatically understood by NTs, when we don't follow through on the small talk prompt, they either think:
we dont like small talk, so we're shutting it down
we are not interested in chatting up this specific person at the moment
it would be insulting to assume or point out that we didn't understand the small talk prompt
we will go off on a rant about implied social norms that frustrate us, and they don't feel like dealing with that
our autism wouldn't let us understand it anyway
Just yesterday, a coworker mentioned my insulated water bottle and remarked on how they always seem to keep ice for over a day, and I proceeded to describe the thermodynamics of vacuum insulation at 4am in the morning to a NT that was half asleep. Once I noticed they were staring at me, i said "haha sorry its probably too early for this."
What can help is to talk about it’s usefulness or how it makes you feel.
Instructions unclear, ended up going on a 3 hour rant about mocroplastics after shifting the topic from how my bottle is a better choice than disposable plastic ones.
I can talk about water bottles for hours and the different materials and ergonomics involved.