My theory about why we don't do small-talk

Post Reply New Topic

I've been thinking about this, & one day over the Xmas break it came to me - most of what I know about communicating with other people was learned from imitating dialogue in books & TV.

Now in books & TV they don't generally bother much with small-talk, because it is not relevant to the plot.

So I (who grew up with pretty hermit-like parents who may or may not be on the spectrum themselves!) would never really have encountered small-talk as a child, and therefore would have had no idea of the fact that it was ever expected of me.

In fact it is only since I have been on WP that I have become aware of it at all!

(I do remember as a very small child being taught the phrases "How do you do?" and "Very well, thank you!" by my grandmother, but since I thought of her as an old-fashioned fusspot I would of course have taken no notice!)

That environment where you didn't learn it may have made it harder, but I don't think it's the cause. I grew up watching almost no TV and I hate small talk. In fact, I know how to do it, but choose not to--not because I don't know how to; because I simply don't like to do it. I think it's because I see not point in engaging in a conversation unless it shares valuable information. It's because my mind is overconcious of following logic. If I didn't think about the purpose of a conversation perhaps I would just stupidly banter, but any time the banter begins, my mind starts up with thoughts like, "what purpose does this current exchange serve?", second by second, until it actually goes somewhere. Once it does, I don't need to think about the conversation itself, but can actually think about the topic. I value the topic, not the act of speech. Speech should serve the topic, not itself. That would be like taking a car out to drive and just driving around in circles. It could be fun for a little bit, but if you are actually trying to go somewhere, frustrating as hell. Well we feel the need to go somewhere.

I totally agree with Juggernaut. When the conversation goes nowhere, or is empty of real significations, i have a real hard time with this....

Personnaly i think that while the problem is related to content, the real problem is that we see NO content where there are a lot in fact. Small talk for NTs is the tool they use to gauge and judge the other's behaviour and way of thinking. It also serves the purpose of putting the two poeple at thier respective place (one becoming the leader, the other becoming the follower). Since we never care about social rank and judging poeple, we see no point in small talk. does this makes any sens ?

I like some small talk, as long as it isn't boring. And a lot of it is boring. If you find yourself in a group of four people and the other three are less intelligent and generally boring, the small talk that results is probably going to be boring as you are outnumbered by these boring individuals. Sometimes I am confused as to the definition of small talk... it's rare that true small talk lasts more than a couple of minutes in my experience, and I can always suffer through that without getting too bored. It's only when I get wrapped up in a longer conversation - say, over dinner - that revolves around something I'm not at all interested in that my attention deficit gets the best of me and I usually end up rudely scanning the room with my eyes searching for a more entertaining distraction.

I small talk to my young son all the time and he still doesn't like it. When he's had enough, he'll say, "Please stop talking now."

I tell him women like to talk all the time and he doesn't have to listen. He just has to look like he's paying attention. Since I explained it to him that way, he is tolerating more small talk. But, phone calls are still difficult for him. He cuts them off abruptly, "Thank-you very much and Good-Bye" ***click***** he hangs up.

I think that makes sense. 
Now that I think of it, I engage in plenty of talk that does not serve any real "purpose"---such as humorous banter, stuff to laugh about. Perhaps it is more of a matter of what we deem important in life. Another thing is that I could engage in a lot of talk with no real purpose, as long as it relates to an interest of mine. Others may see my ability to go on about some obsession as a sort of "small talk", because it is some subject that has no bearing on the real world even, whereas they may consider their momentary interest in the ordinary things to have a lot of immediate importance.

So overall, I am probably too judgemental towards people and their small talk. I've always said, small talk is for small minds, but in a lot of ways, perhaps it is a sign that a person simply has more pracitical intelligence (ie, common sense) whereas I have more abstract intelligence.


But the time when small talk IS inferior, is when people are fake about it. I cannot stand insincerity, so I guess I relate a lot of small talk to insincerity. My thought is, if you have to make up some conversations topic with me, then you really don't have enough in common with me to actually care about me, so stop pretending. Don't ask me where I go to school and what my plans are if you are just going to forget again. Knowing crap like that doesn't tell you anything of any importance about me. But if someone makes small talk and I can tell they are sincere, I try now to be very polite and see things from their view.

My little brother does that. I spoke to him the other day and the conversation went like this:

"Hi dude!"
"Hi."
"How are you?"
"I'm good."
"What are you going to do today?"
"Stop asking me questions!"
"Why? I'm interested!"
"But why do you ask me stupid questions all the time? They're boring."

Gotta love it!! (He's 7)

I remember reading something Scott Adams wrote in one of his first Dilbert books. I'm paraphasing but in essence it went like this.
"Dilbert (and myself) are engineers. We think like engineers and as such we regard verbal communication as another tool. In this case it's a tool used to convey information. If there's no information to exchange then we simply don't see the point in communicating."

Boy did that ever strike a chord with me!

Surely you must have heard plenty of small talk, even if you spent most of your time watching TV. If you ever went any place in the presence of other people, you heard small talk. It's hard to watch anything on TV without hearing at least a little. It's what people do. You were hearing it as a baby and must still hear it now. I don't think it's possible for normal people to interact socially without it, except in very extraordinary situations.

I always want to do that! But I know I'm not supposed to...

When I walk down a busy road I hear the noise from dozens of cars going past, doesn't mean I pay attention to each and every one, try and deduce what type of engine it's got or if it's tuned or not. That's what small talk is to me, white noise to be filtered out for the most part.

For me at least, small talk is of no interest. I don't really give a darn about the weather or anything like that, so for me, it's like, who cares?

Makes me think of my phone conversations with my paternal grandmother. Don't get me wrong, I love her. It's just she's very chatty and I'm...well, not. She asks me, "What's new?" at least five times during our conversations, and then there are times when she starts in on some topic of interest to her and I'm just like, "Mmm-hmm...mmm-hmm...mmm-hmm..." She knows I have mental problems, but she's kind of in La-La-Land about them.

I don't have a theory about it. I just know it literally makes shivers run down my spine, at times. Like hearing rusty nails on chalkboard. It's a physical response. Some folks get knotted stomachs when under mental stress. Which makes it physical, too. I get chills when folks are doing small talk around me or trying to ply me with it. It's physical like that. So I avoid situations likely to do that to me. No parties, ever. No bars (never been to one.) Etc.

I remember a revelation of kinds, some years ago. I was outside in the woods I live in and there was a bunch of finches clustered in the trees. They were chittering to each other, incessantly. Suddenly, a cat walked up near one side of the area and I could easily notice how that side of the trees suddenly got quiet. Nothing. And the silence swept through the trees. I'm sure many of the finches couldn't see the cat, but they noticed the silence and got silent, themselves. It was rather quiet, pretty quickly. The revelation to me arrived because I noticed that the finches seemed to __need__ the chattering going on to feel comfortable, safe. The lack of it was stress. What hit me then was that perhaps most people __need__ small talk in order to feel comfortable. They produce it as part of a background that says, "I'm okay, you're okay." It's there to make them feel safe with each other, somehow.

And somehow it instead makes me feel uncomfortable, instead. Take a piece of wrapping paper and crumple it up around a mouse and it will nearly go berserk climbing the walls trying to get away. It __hurts__ the mouse to even hear it. Constant crumpling would drive a wild mouse insane. About how I'd feel with small talk.

I do enjoy discussions about something we are both interested in, though. Anything technical is really great. I kind of think of it as "looking at something else, in parallel." So one on one discussions often can be directed towards something and that's okay. Working on projects together is good. I don't know what all that means, but there it is.

Jon

I didn't hear small talk as a child. I was outdoors or in a classroom. Children were expected to be silent, and be away from adults. My grandfather never said a word to me until I was 21 years old.

I was going to post something like that. Since you beat me to it, I'll just agree with you.

That's a pretty cynical view. Hopefully that isn't true of all NTs.

It seems to me that a lot of people do just enjoy talking for the sake of talking and they are not really judging each other. They may be close friends where there would be no need to judge or infer social rank.

I can relate to that! I really dont care what people did on the weekend, what they saw or where they went. I watch the morning news only because its convenient but it allows me to do some small talk on current news topics. However I really dont care about that either. I dont retain this information, it just doesnt seem important. I guess I try to make small talk at work but only to try and seem friendly, a lot of the time I just dont talk. I prefer thinking to talking really. I think a lot.