Image text: @agnieszkasshoes: "Part of what makes small talk so utterly debilitating for many of us who are neurodivergent is that having to smile and lie in answer to questions like, "how are you?" is exhausting to do even once, and society makes us do it countless times a day."
@LuckyHarmsGG: "It's not just the lie, it's the energy it takes to suppress the impulse to answer honestly, analyze whether the other person wants the truth, realize they almost certainly don't, and then have to make the DECISION to lie, every single time. Over and over. Decision fatigue is real"
@agnieszkasshoes: "Yes! The constant calculations are utterly exhausting - and all under the pressure of knowing that if you get it "wrong" you will be judged for it!"
My addition: For me, in addition to this, more specifically it's the energy to pull up that info and analyze how I am. Like I don't know the answer to that question and that's why it's so annoying. Now I need to analyze my day, decide what parts mean what to me and weigh the average basically, and then decide if that's appropriate to share/if the person really wants to hear the truth of that, then pull up my files of pre-prepared phrases for the question that fits most closely with the truth since not answering truthfully is close to impossible for me.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CvPSP-2xU4h/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Having a few generic answers is the same thing meant by "seeing 3 or 4 answers".
Then it isn't that hard to do, right? There's no innate talent to it, just plain memorization.
I agree. That's exactly what I do. Memorize two or three different socially acceptable answers to each of the half-dozen or so most common "human vibe check" questions.
Because that's exactly what they are. They're human vibe checks. It's not about finding out how you're really feeling, or what you honestly think of the weather. It's about being a quick way to sort out who is capable of of functioning in a social capacity and who isn't, without putting in a lot of time and effort doing an in-depth screening.
"Small talk" is culturally designed to weed out 70-80% of those people who are likely to be dangerous, unstable, or unreliable, allowing us to know who we need to pay close attention to in our environment and who we probably don't. It's not a question of "lying" or "telling the truth", it's a question of "can you perform your socially expected role in this cultural ritual?".
Saying "I'm fine, how are you?" is no more "lying" than doing a safety check on an airplane you're about to fly is (because you don't actually need to engage the flaps right now, being on the ground and all). It's just about checking to make sure the right lights come on and the right motors engage. If a person can't even answer a question they've had decades to prepare for, and can't engage, even to a minimum acceptable degree, in a small social ceremony they've watched thousands of times and had hundreds of opportunities to practice themselves, that's a bad sign. That's like trying to engage the flaps and hearing some weird grinding noise and getting a red blinking light on the console.
It's important to note here that I have a bit of an advantage in this arena over a lot of the rest of the community. One of my deepest autistic hyperfocus areas has been observing, experimenting, and collecting data on human interpersonal communications, specifically linguistic communication. It's all very ritualistic, at its base, and it's easy for me to create, memorize, and practice the scripts for performing those rituals in different contexts. And when I fuck one up, I can go back through and memorize another script so if that same conversation every comes up in the future (and it will, because there are only so many rituals!), I won't fuck it up again (to the same degree).
I find that the best and worst people are really good at small tall. The best people use small talk to establish relationships and ease into more personal topics that they honestly care about. The worst people use small talk to establish a connection that they can abuse later on.
It doesn't weed out anything but honest people.
That's like saying a pre-flight check doesn't throw up errors on anything anything but honest machines. But, more to the point, you're right, in the sense that the people on either tail end of the "good/bad people" bell curve aren't going to be precisely detected by a simple test of inclusion/exclusion criteria. The ~60% of people in the middle will be. That's why it's a screening tool, not an in-depth socio-psychological exam.
As long as your honesty comes closer to filling the socially expected role than, say, a man who's high on meth or a Qanon conspiracist who thinks "how are you?" is a sex-trafficker code, you're probably ok.
The ability to follow social rituals like small talk, handshakes, bowing, making small offerings, etc. doesn't screen anything for the people in the middle of the bell curve other than the knowledge of and conformity to social rituals.
What is the benefit of screening people through social rituals?
That's exactly the point.
You know instantly who's part of your culture. Whether or not they are a part of your sub-group within that culture. Whether or not they are capable of interacting with strangers in a way that isn't frightening or disturbing (try asking a guy on meth "So, how about this weather?").
If you respond to a social ritual with hostility, that tells the other person exactly what they want to know about you. They know to avoid you, that you are not "friendly", meaning that you are not a person who can be trusted with other, more important/complex social rituals.
You're seriously asking "What's the point of testing the flaps when the plane is on the ground? It's not flying. What do I need to know about the flaps when we're not flying? It's just me and the plane lying to each other?"
So if someone is not familiar with your social rituals then they are not to be trusted?
That is what you are saying, just making sure you mean that someone who doesn't already know your local customs is not to be trusted. Because someone who doesn't want to shake hands because it is taboo in their culture is the same thing as someone refusing to check the flaps before takeoff.
Yes. This is the basis of pretty much all Western human interaction, from the observations and data I have collected over the last 30+ years. It is the root of all inter-group conflicts in the country, from the lofty halls of politics to the "that group's not really a metal band!" subreddit pettiness.
Humans are ritualistic and their interactions are so rigid as to be almost mechanistic, when you get down to the base of them. Every person isn't so much a unique individual as they are a unique combination of common parts, and their communication ceremonies reflect that.
Yes. That is exactly correct. If you don't do the ritual right (or right enough, within a margin of specification), you will not be trusted.
Does it make rational sense from the perspective of a sapient being capable of examining their own actions? Fuck no. But that's the world we live in. We refuse to learn it and adapt to it at our peril.
"We refuse to learn it and adapt to it at our peril"
See that's the entire whole encompassing point of this post. We are literally "in peril" either way. We are all sick, literally burnt out exhausted from all the adapting and masking we are doing every gad dang freaking day to these arbitrary stupid social protocols that serve no purpose. I'm ready to stop. I'm ready to call it out and ask society to change itself for once. ND are literally killing ourselves to fit in and it barely ever works anyway! Accommodations are for everyone, meaning everyone benefits. Just accepting that this is how it is is fucking bullshit. How about NT have some personal fucking growth and acknowledge that they have not given half a shit about how much ND people have contributed to society while being shat on CONSTANTLY for being socially different.
Our brains work differently. It's equivalent to being from a different culture and speaking a different language. Many NT can learn to accept this and adapt their own behavior out of respect for this other person. It's far past time we stop looking at Neurodivergence as a disorder to be suppressed, and instead as a different way of being that is just as valid and that society needs to accept, truly, and adapt to accommodate our needs.
Yes, you're right.
Great idea. Will never happen. Not in a million giggity years. It's like saying the best way to stop mountain lion attacks is to teach mountain lions to not attack.
Treating NTs and the society they built like they are all rational actors who give a fuck is the most dangerous, naive, and stupid thing I ever did in my life. We must treat them like impersonal, implacable forces of nature that cannot be educated or reasoned with, only prepared for so that we can mitigate their inevitable destructive effects on our lives.
I spent most of my life trying to "inform" the NT-society hurricane about how much it hurts me. It's pointless. Give up, spend your energy and your focus on figuring out how to protect yourself from them. The results on your everyday life will be far better.
I disagree that it will never happen. I think it's already starting to happen. Part of it is ND tiktok and Instagram and Reddit/Lemmy and YouTube educating people about it and helping people get diagnosed, part of it is research is ongoing allowing therapists/doctors to get better educated about these conditions, and yes part of it is ND people just deciding fuck it I'm done masking in this specific way in this specific environment and learning how to advocate for our needs and ask for accommodations so that it becomes better understood by NT and more commonly seen.
But I agree with you that for now my energy is best spent providing myself my own accommodations and protecting my energy. I love love love talking about this stuff online in the autism communities.
This post went bigger than any of the others I've made so more NTs came in asking to be educated and riling me up, so I have spent more energy talking to them about this than I would ever normally try to do. So far none of those comments seemed to sink in at all lolsob, in accordance with the prophecy. They tend to just ignore what you say and then repeat what they said before and add an "it's that easy" to the end. And then you slap yourself in the face and do some breathing exercises and walk away for awhile.
But the value I get in engaging with ND folks here is life changing. Just sharing our experiences with each other, commiserating. Makes me feel less alone and gives me spoons somehow. Gives me perspective, and sometimes tips, and resolve to prioritize my needs, and forgiveness for when I can't do the things that I feel I'm expected to do.
Anyway I'm rambling again. I just wanted to say I understand your sense that it's hopeless, and I'm sorry that you burned yourself out in that way and I hope you're taking care of yourself and that you have some people who support you.
All of my bitterness and cynicism in my previous post is actually, now that I sit down and think about it, motivated by concern. For you, for our community, for all of us. I've gotten to a point where I have nothing left to fight with; I can only use the privilege that comes with my specific level of social function and direction of hyperfocus to hide (as much as possible) and pass as a slightly-weird member of NT culture.
As worried as I am that you and others will come to the same fate, I'm also glad that there are still people with some fight in them, who love talking about the community and trying to spread their knowledge with those outside of it. You're doing a good thing. I just worry about you while you're doing it, and I'm not hopeful that it will help in the long run.
But I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong.
I resonate so much with that. I think this is the nature of social change. We fight however we are able until we cannot anymore and then others take up the torch. I struggle with bitterness about other fights I fought before that I burned out from. Maybe I'll learn from those lessons and definitely have learned more about myself so I'm working on recognizing burn out before it ruins me. If not, well I'll learn from that too. It's all we can do. I'm proud of you for recognizing your needs and prioritizing that for now, for however long you it takes.
I agree with this. Observe carefully someone who you deem a master of small talk, and you'll notice it's not intellect or genius, but patterns of small non-answers they've learned to use as conversational support.
For me personally, I’ve been able to “learn” to respond with a few generic answers but that still doesn’t change the over analysis after the fact.
Did I seem genuine enough? I wish I could tell them how I really feel. Why bother responding if it’s a lie? I hate lying. Etc.
So yeah outwardly I appear to be good at small talk. (Heck I even worked sales for a few years) but internally it’s draining.
Believe it or not, that is plain emotional intelligence. Over analyzing can become a vicious circle, but most therapists will teach you ways to escape the dreadful scenarios in out heads, and ground yourself in the real world.
The liberating part is that most people don't care about you much at all, they won't obsess because you said "you too" to your waiter, they'll forget your faux passes quickly if they're small.
For some people it is hard to do. I have ADHD and it is tiring because I have to actively focus on not jusy being honest, but apparently not as much as someone who is autistic.
Saying 'why do some people find my effortless things take a lot of effort' over and over is the same thing as telling them they are wrong for telling you it takes them effort.
It isn't hard to listen to people, is it?
I used to struggle a lot with small talk too, and dialogue in general (used to be too literal), that's why I can relate to some of the answers here. I speak not from prejudice, but from my own experience.
That same experience has taught me that not thinking like the rest is not necessarily the same as being neurodivergent, but having developed different skills as you grew up. If willing, everyone can learn a skill they find lacking at least to a beginner level.
If you are asking this question you haven't read enough of the responses to this post. Consider refraining from commenting until you have read more and listened and reflected on the experiences of others different from yourself.