Small Talk And Gossip

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Do you enjoy small talk, talking about gossip or having long conversations about the mundane aspects of life such as hearing about someone's shopping trip for shoes on Thursday or their experience when they went clubbing last Friday and how their friend got into a fight...

Or do you tend to zone out when people start talking about such things?

Not particularly. I may zone out a little, but I'll try to listen.

I hate gossip. When someone starts to tell me something about someone else that is none of my business I stop them and say I don't want to know. It's an invasion of someone else's privacy, and when someone tells me gossip they are not only doing something vile they are dragging me in as an accomplice.

This has an interesting side effect. If people want to talk to someone about something that is bothering them but they don't want everyone to know, I'm the one they tell. As a result of refusing to listen to gossip I probably end up knowing more than the gossips.

I usually ignore gossip. I figure the person gossiping is trying to manipulate me into not liking the one being gossiped about and question the validity of what they are saying. It could be biased and jaundiced.

At least, with small talk. It's only boring and harmless.

Gossip, though, is different; it is damaging, so I will speak up against it.

I'm not sure what small talk is for. I've been told that it's a 'social lubricant', but that just sounds rude

I try to listen and show interest, but I always end up zoning out. Sometimes I use verbal continuers, like 'okay', 'right', or 'mhm', but since I'm not paying attention I can really mess it up.

I'll be completely honest; it's something that I do when the other person is about to give me money. I'm a freelance musician and we rely mostly on word-of-mouth recommendations. I need to at least appear likable or else I'm not going to get any referrals. Thanks to my ability to "perform" I'm a rare species of musician that actually has spending money. If anything, I think it would be great if more aspies decided to employ small talk at work. This could be the difference between a job and unemployment. A boss is less likely to fire someone who is convivial and good-natured and it definitely helps in an interview.

Small talk is also supposed to function as an ice-breaker and a possible means to earn more meaningful friendship later on. This is hard for me to understand, but I suppose it's true in the NT world.

Why is it that NT females think this is fun? I don't get it. It must be a social mechanism to bring people together at the expense of singling someone out.

I am a recluse hermit and I am terrified by gossip... and paranoia taken into consideration, the gossip is often about me since I am so different from other people.

I try to see it like a protocol, but I do not like it that much. I tend to screw up doing it...

My psychologist actually gave me a physical script to follow. It's laminated and everything. I even have "directors notes" on the back. It's funny, but it works because I don't need to think in the moment. That way it's hard to screw up.

None of those answers really fit me...mine would be approximately "I've learned to be adequately competent at it, but I still don't really enjoy it".

I don't mind a brief "hello, how've you been?" when I meet somebody, but I start looking for an excuse to leave if it doesn't get to something more substantial quite quickly.

Actually, I've been around enough NT men to see they do it too.

I don't see the point of it (and I always end up saying, "but what you're saying here is probably wrong, and you're ignorant about this assumption you've made" and then people get mad at me for not going along with their gripe session).

My mother tries to share gossip with me all the time and I try to shut it out or if I respond it's like the above, or I miss that it's gossip and take it literally as information but then I wonder why this information is meaningful to me. For some reason, my mother will usually share gossip with her husband, my sister, two of my nieces, my stepsisters, and my aunts and uncles before she actually shares gossip with me. Maybe it's because I don't respond correctly.

That said, I am willing to hear bad things about someone if they are true or useful, and firsthand. But in these threads I like to distinguish legitimate venting from pointless gossip.

Buggered if I know; none of my friends do it. Your guess sounds pretty good. I don't get most of those social bonding thingies.

Verdandi is correct about men doing it.

I hate small talk but, honestly, I enjoy gossip. It's one of my guilty pleasures. I don't spread gossip, I just enjoy hearing it.

A mixture of disinterest, nodding until they stop talking to me and zoning out.