Published on 12, July, 2020
One thing I was thinking about today was how so many autists have issues with small talk and social interactions on a day-to-day basis.This is a common autistic trait and I myself have suffered from it but what puzzles me is how so many come to understand it, have the understanding and capacity to learn about it (mostly via the internet or books) and yet won't learn how to develop this fairly simple skill.Is it because the "rules" of small talk are too complex to learn? I've read up on the subject and am pretty sure this is not the case.Is it a confidence issue, a fear of social rejection issue, a demand avoidance issue or what?I realise that in the current social inclusive environment we should be accepted for our differences, but that isn't really a message the 98% of non autists seem to have gotten in my experience.The skills are pretty basic with straightforward rules so you would imagine this is right up most autists street yet some of the most capable autists I hear from here can't seem to come to grips with it to use it effectively.I'm curious to hear your own thoughts as to why any of you still struggle with this.
I think some of it has to do with non-autistic people knowing the 'rules' of small talk instinctively, so just learning it from books or even from experience isn't always enough to find it 'easy' like others might
I think that's absolutely right. I like that you put 'rules' in quotation marks. Because I don't know that there actually are rules in the accepted sense. There's a high degree of chaos, it seems to me, certainly in a group where many people are involved. Perhaps, as autistic people, we want to codify it and create rules so that we can participate. That may work to an extent, but I feel it's liable to break down, because there's more to it than that, in my opinion. You have to learn the rules, then refine them, and repeat, until you achieve a state which is acceptable to you. But it's hard for us, where it's unconscious for most.