Thoughts on why small talk is so uniquely painful
Thoughts on why small talk is so uniquely painful
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==
You're viewing a single thread.
Here's my attempt at a hopefully helpful explanation:
Almost always the small talk itself isn't meant to be a "real" conversation. It's deliberately surface level and repetitive because of this. Think of it like a verbal handshake. A standard greeting that is essentially "I am initiating a conversation" but with an extra layer obscuring that because communication is complicated and there's a ton happening under the surface.
There's a little judgment step prior to engaging in actual conversation to establish that a conversation is or isn't about to happen, if this person is friendly, are they communicating on the same level, etc. The small talk has essentially lost its literal meaning entirely and is all subtext to establish these things. "How's it going?" is just them initiating the conversion protocol, and so taking it literally is like sending back an error message.
If you feel saying "good" to a question like "how's it going" is lying, it might be helpful to think of the question as not actually a question but just a collection of random sounds we've assigned to starting up a conversation and the replies are no different. They aren't actually asking, the words don't even mean that in their head, and your answer just needs to fall into the right parameters that show you're doing the same. Or just have a few "canned" responses that are ready to go so they don't need much thought or sarcastic so you don't feel like it's lying. I'm a fan of "oh you know, livin' the dream" or "I'm surviving" for these sorts of things.
If they actually want real conversation, it'll come after the small talk has established the connection.
My favorite example of how correct this is is how conversations often go with my friends I haven't spoken to in awhile. We will perform the cursory social protocol "hey how are you" "good how are you?" "Good thanks, what's new with you?" "Not much, you?" "Not much" ... And then we often go back to, how have you been? Which is the signal that we've transitioned into the real question seeking the real conversation. Even though it's kind of all the same question in different forms.