Not so speedy...

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I was "talking" (you'll understand the quotes soon enough) to two of my friends over the phone last night, and both of them are nerds and are socially very adept. They can weave jokes into their sentences very quickly and their memories aren't total shite like mine. They were talking about the gaming industry and what was wrong with it and they both knew exactly what they were talking about, as did I, but my mind wasn't able to process and organize that information as quickly as they were. I always have trouble trying to put my thoughts into words, so for most of this "conversation" I stayed silent, as per usual and only chimed in occasionally. Even when I talk to people normally or just one of them at a time, I have to pause a lot and either go silent for a minute or so or just go "Uhh...." as my mind starts putting things into words, and typically, it's really hard for me to describe something to someone else or my interpretations of something. Like, if someone asked me about the deeper meaning of a movie in person or talking on the phone, I would have to pause and not talk for a long time to get my thoughts together whereas they could spew it out in rapid succession without pause...am I just dumb or something? I like to think of myself as smart but sometimes I am just really slow...can anyone else relate? If so, do you all have any workarounds for this or should I just continue going silent and "Uhh..."'ing (yes, it's a wordquote, WHAT NOW!?) my way through conversations? Also, is this typical to people with AS?

Yeah I can relate.....I mean I am not unintelligent or anything, which people usually find out once they get to know me, but it does take me longer to process information and then to express things verbally. So yeah I come off as rather slow......honestly I kinda wish people would have just assmed I was a 'stoner' rather than a 'ret*d' when I was in school at least that would have been a little bit cooler in their opinion but whatever the pasts the past and intrestingly enough I do now smoke cannabis.

So yeah its not really an issue with people I know other then the fact I might get frusterated if I am trying to be part of a conversation but the others involved are talking too fast.....and also my memory kind of sucks so I end up forgetting what I want to say quite a bit and then can't get back to it(this was before the cannabis to....so no that's not why). So yeah I really prefer one on one conversations.

Yes, I get this too. By the time I've thought of something to say the conversation has moved on. I usually just nod a lot. People tell me I'm quiet, as though I hadn't noticed.

@Sweetleaf - I've had people assume I'm a stoner even though I'm one of the few people I know who hasn't tried cannabis. I think it's also because of my eyes.

Happens to me a lot, too. Supposedly, this happens from:

1) a translation time lapse from trying to turn nonverbal thoughts into words, or

2) a time sharing process from having difficulty understanding social cues.
-#2 being like so: recall memory, observe conversation partner's tone of voice, rocess tone of voice, determine whether it's your turn to speak, recall recollection of memory, begin to share recollection, question your own word usage, observe partner's reaction, proccess reaction, recall more memory, etc. and repeat.

Most NTs supposedly do #2 subconsciously all the time, whereas most Auties have to do it consciously, which slows us down in verbal communication.

This is also why we write better than we speak. Don't have to process the partner's reaction when writing, while writing. And writing does not communicate the pauses or delete/backtracking of the editing process.

Oh, to help me remember what I want to say, I often write key words on my hand with a sharpie when someone else is talking. That frees me from remembering it while trying to listen, making me a better listener.

Right now my hand has a picture of an Amp stack on it, a friend's name, and a band's name. 3 different thoughts I wanted to share in a conversation I just had about music. I was having painful tic/stims trying to remember those 3 things and break into my room mate's rant. It helped, the stims went away a while after I wrote stuff on my hand.

Yep, this describes me.

Yeah I can relate to this big time!!

Story of my life ! Like you mentioned, its not that I'm unintelligent or anything, but when I am engaged in a conversation, for whatever reason, I find it really hard to do any in-depth thinking at the same time (this makes interviews really rough for me since that's kind of the entire purpose of an interview lol). The only advice I can give is to keep practicing, and maybe try to plan out some things beforehand that you could potentially talk about and phrase how you would want to say them (obviously this doesn't work all the time since conversations are often dynamic and unpredictable, but its a start!).