Saying "Thanks" / Repeating questions back

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When you ask a person how the weekend was, and they do not ask you back, you have every reason to believe that they do not care how your weekend was - even when they do not mind them telling. I (NT male) have an aspie friend and she only tells briefly about her weekends, except when something noticeably has happened like citytrip or something. That's ok with me, even though I genuinely am interested. But I want to tell her about how my weekend was, so I just do that, and she does seem to like that. But she never, ever, asks me about my weekend. Every now and then the creepy feeling gets inside me that she is just tolerating me and my talk and that she really couldn't care less about how I feel or with what feeling I start the week. So sometimes I just skip all that and leave her alone, because I don't want to harrass her, but then she seems distressed when I don't do my routine. I can assure you that is a recipe for sleepless nights, because of the fundamental uncertainty if she even likes me at all or not. And I'm talking 'just' friendship here.

By telling her about your weekend on each occasion, you have established a pattern. She expects you to volunteer the information, and when you do not, she probably thinks you have good reason not to talk about it, and she will therefore not ask, out of consideration for your feelings. However, she will be distressed because she then assumes that something bad happened (after all, you don't want to talk about it), and she will worry about that. But she can't ask you, because by breaking the pattern, you indicate that you do not want to talk about it.

Does that make sense?

LOL same for me in English rather than in the native language

It's actually easier for me to handle conversations with foreigners than with people from my own country. Things like humor, gestures (handshakes, hugs, bows, etc.), slang, and more subtle do's and don'ts are never taken for granted when dealing with a foreigner, so there usually is much more care in observing and "decoding" each other.

When you get good at this stuff don't you hate yourself/them/the world because your only way of fitting in is via manipulation?

Would it really be so detrimental for one to not return someone's questions?

This is the first I've officially heard of this, but I've often felt when someone asks if I had a fun weekend and I say "yeah it was OK", that they're anticipating me asking them something - and I never do. But it's not like they would even care either way would they?

I don't care about these people's lives, it seems rude to pretend to be interested just for the sake of social convention?

The kind of people who care aren't the kind of people I need to know. I don't try to blend in and it's always been true that beautiful people love me and crazy people hate me. YMMV.

This is exactly how I used to feel. I got used to thinking instead, "well, if they're really going to ask about my weekend, they get whatever feelings they deserve when I ask them about their weekend."

That is so true. I'm surrounded by foreigners all the time and I feel comfortable because nobody expects me to "know the rules". I find communicating with somebody from my own country a lot more stressful.

I often forget to ask questions back... instead I keep talking about myself. I would ask the other person directly if I was really interested in what they did on the weekend. Repeating questions back is equal to small talk.. so. no thanks.