Theory About NTs and Smalltalk

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NeuroTypicals seem to be a little annoyed if I constantly tell jokes to try to relate to them. I notice they relate to each other by telling tried-and-true jokes not of their own devising and talking about events that actually happened in their lives.

It would seem from my serious tone of voice and facial expression that some NTs think I actually expect them to believe some of my absurd jokes and hilarious hypothetical situations. That's nonsense, but I have come to a conclusion about socializing with NTs from this: Shared experiences are the currency of NT socializing; excessive jokes are thought of as counterfeit.

NTs in general don't seem to give too much credit for creativity, originality, and insightfulness, all of which I value considerably. I suppose part of the reason I've fallen out of favor with many of the people I've been talking to most is that I've been passing out counterfeit socializing.

I think this currency model of socializing can help us aspies understand social situations better. What are your opinions?

Heh, Scoots, that sounds like the typical conversation from my high school math classes.

But yes, shared experiences are good to talk about, because then both people can share information, rather than one doing the talking and the other just listening. I have found that all friendships are based upon commonalities, however trivial they may seem.

There are certain types of NT's.

I personally can't be bothered with NT's that live to get on the piss, they can all piss off, I don't want to know them.

You must be trying to fit in with alot of common, stupid or boring NT's if this is what they like talking about.

As you get older and away from that student "environment", there will be less talking about idiots getting on the piss except for a few low IQ'd NTs.

I find that a lot of NTs communicate just for fun, and not coz they want to exchange information.

However their meaning of fun when talking to each other, I usually find very boring. Therefore I avoid such places and have fewer friends. Oh well.

When I was younger I generally considered the primary purpose of face-to-face communication to be the exchange of information. This is sometimes done, but what I was missing was that most of the time people talked in order to make each-other either more comfortable or less comfortable. One common tactic to do this is to find out how the two of you relate. This shows that you are eager to find common ground with the other person, which is usually appreciated.

If your joke is good at helping to gain the common ground, or at least making the other person laugh, all the better. If not, it may not be any use to you.

By the way, don't ever tell a joke that you don't really get, even though other people seem to find it funny.

I used to think that people do small talk because they have nothing substantial to say. Then someone explained to me that it's not always about what you say but about the nonverbal stuff and how you react to the other person. It's a way to "check out" the other person. So now I think that it's the human equivalent of dogs sniffing each other's butts.

I am somewhat partial to Desmond Morris' hypothesis that small talk developed as a replacement for the social grooming behavior of other primates when our species became relatively hairless.

If you want to get your minimum quota of small talk done try watching the news. There is usually a couple stories worth talking about. This is more neutral talk though. Among friends or in certain jobs it might not be the best thing but with acquaintances or in general jobs it works fine.

What they do when they do small talk is basically the same thing that most social animals do when they groom each other--they are reinforcing social bonds. The actual content of the small talk does not matter one bit, as long as it is not unusual or upsetting. If you want to make small talk, the best is to actually observe NTs doing it for a good long while and trying to judge the patterns. Then you follow the patterns on your own. Don't think of it as communication, because it doesn't actually spring from the need to transfer information. They might talk about the weather, but they're not really interested in it, and they don't want to hear about what you learned about meteorology; they might talk about what they're doing for an upcoming vacation, but their conversational partner doesn't really need the information... etc.

I would caution you about one thing if you do the follow-the-pattern small talk: You will find that you are not quite thinking of your words as communication anymore, and you are liable to say things that aren't true because they fit the pattern. For example, I might mention that my little sister played the flute, when in fact she does not, simply because the idea fit the pattern. It can be disturbing to many people for lies to pop out like that, especially since there is no good reason to lie, and since you may accidentally contradict yourself. I have no solution yet except to be very careful not just to follow the pattern but to check whether the things you are saying make sense. That requires multitasking, which can be annoying... But if you are good at patterns, maybe this is one solution.

I understand that NTs use smalltalk to see how the person's personality is like etc.

I think it's inefficient though. I would rather people do "bigtalk" coz you get to know a person even quicker. If I don't know a person that well, I don't really care about their "smalltalk" stuff, like their kids or their job or their pets.