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
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.
What???!???!? Why didn’t anyone tell me this?
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.
Yes, love to have a hot/cold drink available all day. It gives me comfort. This bottle is a good friend, I can always rely on.
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.
I speculate that since this is automatically understood by NTs, when we don’t follow through on the small talk prompt, they either think:
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we dont like small talk, so we’re shutting it down
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we are not interested in chatting up this specific person at the moment
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it would be insulting to assume or point out that we didn’t understand the small talk prompt
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we will go off on a rant about implied social norms that frustrate us, and they don’t feel like dealing with that
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our autism wouldn’t let us understand it anyway
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