Is Aspie conversation motivated by need?

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The other day, my mother told me that I should make an effort to talk to / visit my grandmother. My brother and his wife visit her once a month or so as do my sister and her husband. I do not. It's not that I have anything against her, I don't wish anything bad on her, nothing like that. It's that I don't have a need to see or talk to her. My thought process is that since she doesn't call me or invite me over, she doesn't have a need to see me either so why should I put in effort for something that neither of us have a need for? I love my grandma, but I have nothing to talk about.

It's not just my grandma, but anyone. Unless I need something, I pretty much don't talk to anyone.

My grandmother lives in a home for elderlies but she has Alzheimer's and is senile but you cannot have a conversation with her because she doesn't respond to you and she doesn't answer and she can't hold a conversation because of it. I know she doesn't do this on purpose but I didn't bother seeing her because I don't see the point. I could go in and watch her like she is some animal in a cage like people do to babies but I find that boring.

She can still talk but she can't hold a conversation or talk like we can.

I run into that problem with small talk. I have trouble asking people random questions about their life. First of all, I will most likely forget whatever it is that they tell me, so I don't see why I should bother. Second, if they think that I should know what their job is or whether they are married, they should tell me. Why should I have to ask???

The need to know topic

All my conversations with others are goal driven. I have something in mind, or doing some sort of research.

It's not so much that my conversations are driven by need; it's more that people that aren't in my immediate life are rarely on my mind. I forget to call my mother not because I don't care, but I simply don't think about her. I do my best to remember to call her because it's important to her, not to me.

It's the same with sending birthday cards (I'm simply terrible at it!).

This is definitely a situation with which I can sympathize. I feel the same way as you. I don't see any reason to just park myself on someone's couch or call them if there isn't a specific purpose to the visit or call. Part of it is that I don't see the point and wouldn't have anything to talk about and part of it is that I don't want to waste time -- theirs or mine.

Mine is for sure. It seems any conversation I have has to be sparked by the other person or I will just sit there doing my own thing, because I don't need to talk about anything and really don't want to. It's not on my list at that moment. Eventually things like that make it to the top of my priority list, but it's usually only when I really need to talk to someone, whether I just need someone to listen to me vent or if I actually need information or something physical from them.

I hate to feel that way at times... so self-centered. But then I look around, and wonder if all of the people who always want to talk to me for this reason or another, really have any other motivation better than mine.

I always think it's funny when a cashier says "how are you?" to me. I used to hate it... they are a stranger, how can they really care and want a real answer in response? Now, on the little computer thingie in front of you, where you watch everything they ring in, this thing will pop up that will say "was your cashier polite/courteous to you? yes/no" and it just makes me want to giggle. I wonder if they all would still do it if they didn't have customers rating them.

Once I went into a store and felt more comfortable with this lady in customer service that was basically throwing a full fledged fit right in front of us, than any of the cashiers competing for the most "yes" answers or whatever they are doing... either way, they are too robotic, and it was nice to see a change in someone's attitude really.

For me this tends to happen more with phone conversations. For example, my mom gets upset at me when she doesn't hear from me for a while. My last phone conversation with my mom was her bugging me about not calling her for a month. Well, in that month nothing really happened so I didn't see the need to call her and give her an update. Yet one more thing I can't seem to do right.

Sounds like me. I don't like asking questions when I know that I probably won't find the answer that exciting. I simply cannot hold a conversation without a topic. Small-talk is supposed to act like a bridge into a topic but most of the time I don't have enough patience. Most of my conversations are all one sided with the other person asking all the questions. I mostly let the other person handle the small talk, yet the end result of this is everyone knows more about me than I know about them. People seem to like to talk to me though which is weird. I must do the smile and nod thing convincingly even when I'm quite bored with peoples' questions.

I usually don't talk, let alone converse with others of my species. I prefer just sitting close to my person of choice as a means of saying "You're a cool person, we should hang more often."

Poeple normally don't get it, so I "play the game" often, faking voice tone, body language, and posture to get my point across. This works about half the time... But it's better than my usual tactics.

I can agree on this.

Espeacially I don't want to be seen as lonely, so I need to speak or surround me with people. Pathetic :/

I wondered about that too before. Do they want to see me even if they do not say so? Normal people mean they they don't say all the time.

Then I decided I might go and make an effort to socialise with the family members, because if they do something for me I got to do something in return to make this fair. I imagined I could bring a game to play. I haven't done this yet, but I want to do this.

I am the same. When I said once that - unless I realize there is something specific I need to tell them - I generally just don't think about people when I'm not with them, I was indignantly told that that was very hurtful. Apparently I should be thinking about other people on and off all day and wondering how they are and what they're doing.