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Ask questions, then just listen to the answers. Nod and add the occasional 'go on.'
People will usually let you know what excites/interest them. If someone is wearing a football jersey ask them what the best game they ever saw was.
People don't expect you to entertain them, they just want to know that you are interested in them
That sounds simple enough for me to remember! Focusing on being a better listener is what I should be working on.
But what if there are no immediate things to talk about? What if the conversation falls flat? Do you have a 3 strikes rule before you walk away from the interaction?
Maybe I’m getting too much in my head about things. Thanks for the reassurance 😊 This community always makes me feel more secure with some of my inner concerns about socializing and my perception in the eyes of others.
"Comfortable silence" is a thing.
And walking away is always an option. "I'm gonna see who else is here," or "I'm going to get a drink/some fresh air" or "good talk." are acceptable ways of ending a chat
Agreed, however I recommended against "good talk", personally.
No one has ever said that to me after having what might actually be considered a "good" talk. I find it's usually only said by someone who has tried to start a conversation and I have failed to effectively reciprocate.
@y0kai @Dagwood222 Seconded on that one, it's definitely more used with a negative/sarcastic connotation
Whatever works.
It might help to have some examples. Are you a student talking to other students? An office worker talking to colleagues? An attempt to converse with (say) a busy clerk at a store is less likely to go well than a casual chat with someone who is also waiting in line.
And sometimes there’s genuinely nothing to talk about, and recognizing that is a useful skill.
If someone doesn't want to talk, that is ok. However, people are more likely to talk if they feel listened to.
I also have this worry constantly, but i've learned that there are different sorts of silences. just because it's silent doesn't mean it's awkward. most people don't care if you mess up in casual conversation.
Usually when I try this strategy, I might fall flat on my face by not knowing anything at all what I just asked about. Should one thing of every small talk excursion as an onion?
What I mean by an onion is to be able to organize the depth of the conversation by extent of discussion. To transform the comment into a dialogue is most desirable. Small talk is the goal here, just not the robotic:
“I like your Kansas City Chiefs Jersey!”
“Oh thanks, did you see how Frank Footballer did that pass against the Steelers?”
“Not really, but my grandmother always had the TV on and loved the Super Bowl!”
“Cool, buddy!”
After this, it’s like a game over screen is flashed before my eyes. Not to be dramatic, but this situation happens in many domains of conversation for me.
Do you have any extended advice for this?
"You, know, I hear people talk about that a lot, but honestly, I have no idea what it actually is. Can you give me some pointers?"
Now they are your mentor.
That's the neat part, you don't!
Jokes aside in extreme cases a psychologist could help.
Speaking as a psychotherapist, I wanna point out that almost no one "knows" what to say in a conversation.
We're all making it up as we go along and that's what most people enjoy about them.
Often the challenge is giving yourself permission to say what you want to say.
When people say "I don't know what to say" what's often meant by that is "I don't know what I should be saying"
If you can get past the idea that there's a right thing and a wrong thing to say, conversation can happen organically. This takes practice sadly, and means getting it wrong sometimes, and that's okay too.
Preface: I agree with you but want to add a counter to explain why people might be uncomfortable following your advice.
—
We should admit that there are people who have decided that there are “wrong” answers and that those people have soured the experience enough that there’s a whole branching group of people afraid enough of them to instictually perpetuate the same nonsense. It’s not about “I don’t know what I should say” but about “I don’t know what I’m allowed to say that will avoid some form of behind-the-back punishment.”
There are also some people I know who where a mask thicker than their own skin and I know for a fact that they do it because of trauma. They refuse to hold strong opinions and when they do you have to be incredibly delicate with them because sharing an opinion means something entirely different to them. If you share an opinion then to them you wouldn’t unless you were really mad or really had no respect for the alternatives. My ex-girlfriend literally couldn’t handle me saying “no yea…” because the “no” was negative and it was her, by her own admission, traumatized parents who made her that way. I’ve still tried to soften myself since but oh my god.
I’m polite, your typical conservative would probably call me woke, and people call me up when they’re feeling sad because they trust me. When I say “opinion” I don’t mean insane crap like trying to say that homophobia or sexism is “just my opinion, bro” but like literally even just giving polite, requested feedback after a course or something. I swear giving a 4/5 review is the end of the world to these people because any negativity is percieved as a death sentence(and it kinda is, thanks capitalism). “I really liked most of X but think this part could be streamlined” is translated by them to “I hate you deeply and am just trying to soften the blow to appear proper”.
Totally agree. There's a lot in this seemingly simple topic.
Its often hard to unpick the differences that come from neurodiversity compared to the impact of living in a world that is often hard and even cruel to people who are seen as different.
Consequences of that is things that sound easy or simple rarely are.
Yup yup yup. The people who’ve literally been shocked that I’m not judging them break my fucking heart.
I love your phrasing of “behind the back punishment”. Working in an office long enough and hearing the gossip about others makes me realize that myself personally is not exempt from being gossiped about.
I’d rather not say a “no-no” by accident when showing my candid self, which gets me grouped into being an odd ball. I have a mask personality that quite frankly I hate. He’s boring, plain, and can’t show any of his ultra specific interests or adeptness without coming off as a show off. It’s hard to talk about how I can play multiple instruments, speak many languages, and enjoy electronics and gardening without coming off as some bougie pretentious fuck. Hopefully I’m far from that, but a lot of the times my non chalantness with how I’ve taught myself all these skills make people think I’m over inflating my abilities or I’m just trying to brag.
Generally I’ve been a confidante to many people because they are willing to open up to me. But I think once I learn such deep information about someone so early in a friendship, this person regrets sharing the candid side of themselves and then distances themself from me.
The Vance method guaranteed* to work:
[enter donut shop] * point at random employee*
"How long have you been working here!"
"About eighteen months"
"And how long have YOU been working here!"
"Six weeks or so."
"Mhm. AND YOU!"
Then just go through every single employee, order 'whatever makes sense' and leave.
*this claim has been rigorously fact-checked by dog-eating Haitians
The best way is to ask questions about something that the person obviously puts thought into.
"Those shoes are sweet, where did you get them?"
"Gnarly hair dude, who's your stylist?"
"Yo this chicken piccata you made is tubular man."
Be engaged and ask follow up questions, people love talking about themselves. Soon enough you've gotten to know them, and you just say hey and be friendly every interaction after.
Got it. Use phrases popularized by surfers/ninja turtles.
Be Keanu in Point Break, catch the bad guys, get the girl, make friends, profit. A playbook as old as time.
I see you picked up on the subtext, don't forget the hand Mario World had in that too (and don't forget to mention the chicken piccata, that's the important part) 😉
I like being avant- Garde and over the top when I want to get someone’s attention… This seems to break people out of their robotic work responses, and it gives others a chance to show their fun side.
Giving compliments is fun, but I feel sometimes people think I’m complimenting them for one in return!
Giving compliments is fun, but I feel sometimes people think I’m complimenting them for one in return!
Maybe they view it that way, and it does vary from person to person, but if you're being genuine you probably aren't giving off that vibe at all! Now, if you are actually just complimenting them for transactional purposes then yeah, they're probably going to pick up on that. But if you're using a compliment as a segue into a conversation, it's obvious you're not fishing for compliments because you're asking questions about what you just complimented.
The best advice on socialization that I can give you is don't be afraid to express genuine positivity, for any reason. If you think someone's shoes are cool, go tell them, and ask them about that. If they think you're weird for saying so, that is 100% a them problem and there are plenty of awesome peeps out there that will take your positivity and interest in them and send it back your way tenfold.
EDIT: To add to this, because you clarified that your issues lie in maintaining conversations rather than starting them, try to balance giving/gaining information in a conversation, see if that helps. Conversations are a back-and-forth that can go almost anywhere, not an event where people take turns saying their thing at the other person. So if you're in the middle of a conversation and you think you're starting to be a chatterbox, go like "ah but I'm going off again," and ask them something about what they last said. Not only does it show you're listening, it also allows them to circle back to a topic in which they obviously show interest. If you try to ask (noninvasive) questions and prod the other person into giving information, the conversation can't stagnate because you're engaging them on a subject.
Also, sometimes conversations just die. Or have awkward endings. That's not necessarily an autism thing, just a life thing. Most of the time when I think I made a conversation awkward, going back and asking for clarification if I made it awkward is what actually makes it awkward. If you can be fine with maybe coming across as a little odd sometimes, it will take a MASSIVE amount of pressure off of social situations for you.
Can you give us more information about the types of scenarios that are not working for you? I hesitate to give any recommendations, because it seems like you're mixing together a bunch of possible issues, and that could easily lead to misunderstandings on someone's part.
The first question you ask is how to get other people to speak with you. But then right after that you say that you don't know how to respond. Which I think means they are speaking to you. So what's happening here? Is it a situation where you can do back and forth for only two sentences, or perhaps four sentences? Details matter.
And then you say that you're not a chatterbox, which implies that you wish you were a chatterbox, which is totally different from the opening two questions which seem to be about getting a conversation started and not about keeping it going for minutes or hours on end.
So I guess what I'm wondering is, what scenario do you want to address first? What specific situation are you in where you're very troubled because you don't know what to say?
Just posted a follow-up, but you bring up some good points.
Getting people to speak to me generally is an easy part. I don’t have trouble approaching others or initiating some sort of conversation. Usually this will be about a clearly visible article of clothing, cool earrings, pride apparel, hairstyle, the common small talk topics.
The back and forth will last generally for 2-6 sentences, where some type of awkwardness will insert itself into the situation. Maybe I don’t know how to respond after someone has shared something about an actor or singer they like. Maybe there’s an online trend I’ve missed, or they’re shocked that I’m in my early 20s and have no mainstream social media platforms. It’s not like my intention is to reveal that I’m a crazed Linux weirdo to everyone I know, but my interests are hyper specific. I could read up about what others like, but that would remove the authenticity from the conversation.
I know that depth like this doesn’t apply to smalltalk, and I don’t want to seem like an emotional weirdo to others, but I generally will also get happy and excited when others share my interests, which can be off putting in a different sense, maybe 10 minutes into a short chat.
My tendency to delve into historical facts, geography, electronics, scientific history, in order to connect something someone said about a building or a roof can also put people off. This is what I mean about being a chatterbox. I could never run out of things to say, so this oftentimes isn’t the problem. I’ve had wonderful and fulfilling conversation for hours over food and drinks with others who don’t mind this facet of me.
Once people get to know my character and who I am, this tends not to be an issue. But developing a working acquaintanceship is the difficult part so I don’t come off as a weirdo.
So let’s start off with small talk I.e 1-3 minute interactions, and branch into medium length office chats, then conclude with a lunch or dinner conversation.
If they mention something that you're not familiar with, e.g. an actor or a singer you don't know or don't know why they are being brought up, you could try asking them more follow up questions about it.
In the same way you enjoy sharing your interests with other people, other people also enjoy sharing theirs. If you show an interest in what they're talking about, you might learn something interesting about a new topic and you would be able to more easily share something you know that is relevant to what they are talking about if you know more about their interests.
Some of what I’ll say has probably been said, but here are some of my thoughts.
I really struggle with small talk. Like I would rather sit in silence than exchange useless thoughts/information, so a lot of the “standard” ways society makes conversation just really pain me, even as just a start for more interesting conversations.
I’ve remedied this in a few ways. The first, as others have mentioned, try to find something about the person you take interest with. Getting into fashion has proven to be a wonderful tool for this for me. It’s very easy to find an item in someone’s outfit I like. If it’s an interesting piece of clothing or jewelry it probably has a fun story behind it. So much of the clothing that actually gets sold these days is really bland I feel, just overpriced basics. Many actually neat pieces are vintage or at least second hand, and often come with stories of where they were from or how they came into someone’s possession.
I’m not saying become a fashion girlie, but a lot of people carry indicators of their interests in some way. Stickers on water bottles or pins on bags. I love seeing someone with a sticker from the same fandom as me, or a pride pin. Even if it’s just a “hey I like your pin”. Getting in the habit of stuff like that will just help you approach people, and make you more approachable.
Another thing I’ve started doing more is smiling at people. This was something I had to get used to as I started passing more, but most people that were not socialized as men often smile at one another in passing. Even just actually looking at people. Like I don’t feel as weird observing things I find interesting, because worst case if someone notices me looking at them or something, I’ll just smile. Show some joy, people will often join. I feel like there was this period where I assumed I was “smiling wrong” and just looking like a creep, but idk, I’m just smiling in the way that feels genuine to me, and most people seems to get it. From there if more interaction happens then I got back to my first point.
Between these two things I think I’ve just become a more socially accessible person. I’m good at being interested in things, I had to get better at noticing things I can take interest in.
Finally, it is tiring. Make sure to take care of yourself. If your social battery is empty, don’t be social!! As I’ve lived more of my truth, with both my autism and my transition, I’ve naturally fallen in with people that are also very accessible and accommodating. If I need to have a non-verbal night with friends they won’t question that and in fact we all know enough sign language to make that very doable.
You’ll start meeting people that you mesh with!! It is absolutely tough putting yourself out there, and you’re clearly putting lots of thought and effort into this. Keep going!
Agreed with not wanting to exchange superficialities… It just feels like the other person is trying to mine for a particular type of interaction when the conversation is all hot air. This isn’t a prejudice I impose on all, but if the talk is about someone’s significant other, bragging about their child, or something about a celebrity or trend I don’t necessarily see eye to eye with, these are examples of off putting topics.
Lately I have wanted to improve my own fashion sense. After getting my first career, I was able to get my teeth straightened, so this has improved confidence with smiling and showing my teeth. Agree with the smiling wrong sentiment though. It’s evident I’m autistic from how wide my face will perk up. People who know me enjoy my bubbliness, but it triggers something in strangers usually.
When I’m being trained by other professionals, I can tell I’m one of the more engaging folks in the group. If there are 3 or 4 other engineers with me, predominantly I’ll be given eye contact (which drains my social battery) and this leads to me being the most inquisitive up until my social level collapses and I nearly become non verbal. I’ll stop comprehending what the other person is telling me, start sweating, and the words start sounding like muffled noise. This can immediately change a new persons opinion with me, as 1 out of the 10 people I met got to see this during a first impression, and has a permanent burn in of that side of myself as his perception of my general personality. Sucks, but you can’t change that!
Love to hear that living your truth and with your natural neurotype is helping you 😊 I feel the same learning about my autism more and understanding the lapses in consciousness and gaps in emotional awareness…
Oof yeah, the work environment sounds rough. The industry I’m in overlaps a lot with queer, and neurodivergent folk, which helps set the tone of a lot of interactions for sure.
I really relate to the being “one of the more engaging folks”. I’m very good at being interested in new information, which often translates to people talking to me when they should be talking to the whole group. That is super draining because once it’s started I feel a bit of a responsibility to maintain that so the person giving instruction doesn’t get thrown off.
The part about first impressions is interesting to me. I feel like people that are that quick to write someone off aren’t really people I would personally want to hang out with. Obviously in a work environment that is tough because you’re around them no matter what, but yeah, seems like those people aren’t very accepting or accommodating.
Have you considered talking to your employer about potential accommodations? I read an article recently about a bunch of adults that finally brought their diagnoses up to their bosses and it actually went really well.
Thanks for the kind words at the end of your reply. Keep on keeping on!
In high school, I took some time to read Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People". The title is as edgy as I was as a teen, but the advice is wholesome and sound, the core being one of the first few rules the book prescribes: Take a genuine interest in people. It's a solid set of rules that help beyond masking behaviors and can even act as masking itself, even if it could do with some more up to date examples.
It's easy. Don't say much, just ask questions and let people talk.
“How ya doing?”
“Good.”
“…”
“Bro come on we’re literally friends already are you seriously not excited about anything that happened in the last two weeks?”
When we’re all told that “proper” is not talking about ourselves we end up with needlessly boring conversations and the inverse idea that someone excited about something is being improper. Keep an eye on how much space you’re taking up, leave openings for people to jump in, but yap if ya gotta yap.