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What’s the most “NT” way of starting a conversation?

Autismman

So today I made a conscious effort to start or try to start a bit of small talk between myself and a cashier. First of all they didn’t hear me which I thought was some sign I shouldn’t bother or did he hear me and was deliberately ignoring me? I am not sure. I ended up repeating myself by saying “busy today?” he replied with “not as busy as some weekends we have” fair enough answer. I made a comment on it being cooler in here and the outside is, it was a supermarket so they had air con luckily for them. I mean he didn’t seem that over the moon to be working at all so perhaps not the best start for my test but an experience anyway. I usually do not go out of my way to speak with others or start the conversation unless spoken to so I did plan what I was going to say but I will repeat this method perhaps with slightly different questions. I feel I need some scripts in my arsenal for different situations though. 

Parents

  • I lived in the US for a while and used to get a bit confused by the unfamiliar phrases and body language. Every time someone greeted me with "What's up?" it was all I could do to keep my eyes level. That's also a difficult one to answer with anything other than "What's up?", but that made little logical sense to me, so I think I used to go with, "Oh, same ol' same ol'."

    On one occasion, a colleague raised his hand and I stood there staring at it for a while. Then he prompted, "Eh, high five?" I duly "gave him five". I was in my early 20s and I had just lost my high-five virginity. It was a touching moment.

    Apropos of nothing, here's a little INFODUMP: Did you know that American men usually cross their legs with ankle-over-knee, rather than with knee-over-knee, which is much more common in Europe? Apparently, the European way is considered a bit "feminine". (Whereas us Europeans are thinking, "**cough** Spreading!")

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  • I lived in the US for a while and used to get a bit confused by the unfamiliar phrases and body language. Every time someone greeted me with "What's up?" it was all I could do to keep my eyes level. That's also a difficult one to answer with anything other than "What's up?", but that made little logical sense to me, so I think I used to go with, "Oh, same ol' same ol'."

    On one occasion, a colleague raised his hand and I stood there staring at it for a while. Then he prompted, "Eh, high five?" I duly "gave him five". I was in my early 20s and I had just lost my high-five virginity. It was a touching moment.

    Apropos of nothing, here's a little INFODUMP: Did you know that American men usually cross their legs with ankle-over-knee, rather than with knee-over-knee, which is much more common in Europe? Apparently, the European way is considered a bit "feminine". (Whereas us Europeans are thinking, "**cough** Spreading!")

Children
  • in reply to Damojo

    What’s up?

    In my opinion, ankle over knee is too awkward and knee over knee is a little… too constricting if you know what I mean. I don’t feel like there’s a good answer to the world’s biggest dilemma of “how men should cross their legs.”

    I’m so sorry to hear about your loss of high-five virginity. If you were to come to the States now, we would have you do a fist bump instead; we’ve changed our ways to that since COVID.

    Speaking of weird phrases in the USA: I have a Mexican American friend who said when he was learning English here he overheard an attractive woman yell at someone else “Kiss my [EXPLETIVE].” Of course he thought she was being literal for the longest time and for a while kept thinking “Why did she want that guy to do that?”