Small Talk Drives Me MAD

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I can't stand when people talk to me about nothing. I don't even like hearing other people do it!

I work as an assistant hostess at a sky bar, and I enjoy much of my job - organizing the food and drinks, setting the tables up, helping the customers get what they want - but one area of my job I can't stand is the jovial small talk I'm expected to make with customers.

I guess it can be hard to define what 'small talk' is, but it's not the subject - I don't mind talking about the weather, but if we're going to talk about the weather let's actually discuss it; the physics of it, the weather in the Ice Age, the epistemic problems of climatology - but don't just say, "It sure is raining, herp-a-derp". What the Hell am I supposed to say to that other than 'yep'?

This is just a paradigmatic example, it can be with anything. It seems like people just talk to each other to be socially interacting, even if they have no actual information to convey or receive.

Is this just me? It's making my nights at work much more tedious than they need to be. I wish I could just do my job in silence!

I have the same problem with guys hitting on me. Now, I don't mind a guy hitting on me - as long as he's not being obnoxious I'm certainly not going to get mad at him for expressing interest; but when they hit on me it seems all they ever do is just throw out disposable, trivial chatter. God, I'd much rather deal with a lecher than someone who thinks some vague comment about my dress is supposed to make me interested in them.

Oh yeah, I work at the market, sometimes customers love to make small talk. I only make small talk if a particular subject interests me, like I'm interested in what there buying or something or if I truly have something to say to them not just I need to say something to them.



Well most NTs don't really care too much about stuff that much in depth. The weather topic seems to be a relatively common default topic particularly when you really dont know what to say to a person. My driving teacher seems to bring up the weather a lot with me, makes me wonder?

But you have to remember that social interaction between NTs is so much more then words. NTs love to connect to each other. Whereas us aspies seem to interact majority of the time to achieve a purpose or if its a subject of interests, not so much talk for nothing.



I have the same wish, I could just do my work in an empty store with a few co-workers. That's mainly cause I'm bad at the customer service parts, I hate disappointing customers, suck at multitasking and get scatter brained a lot on the job. Plus sometimes I'm so concentrated on my tasks that I do something rude to the customer by accident, like walking in front of them. I got reprimanded once for that by a customer. Its no so much the small talk parts.

I remember my first read through of wrong planet, and reading a post on this subject. I remember my sense of delight and astonishment, that there were other people who abhorred small talk. It was like- god how how do I describe what it feel like to have other people put into words what I had never been able to explain to other. Things I felt only I experience.

I guess the overall of it is that I don't like to deal with anything unless I have a use for it, and I see no reason to treat people as a special category of object unlike a remote control. If you're not useful to me you can take an express train to Hell. That attitude seems to horrify lots of people, but I suppose it's because I find the herd stifling, not comfortably warm. If there isn't a reason for a person to be around me I'd just as soon they be somewhere else.

There's plenty of mindless small talk here on WP, it just depends on the thread. Some of it makes my head want to explode. I can handle this kind of social exchange if it lasts less than 20 seconds and then I can leave, like at the grocery register.

That's exactly what's going on -- and, yes, it drives me nuts, too. I read a journal article a couple of years ago in which the author argued that this kind of social chatter may be the human form of cooperative grooming. Remember all those pictures of primates in the wild grooming each other? According to the author, speech may have partially developed as a response to increases in group size that didn't allow for this kind of one-on-one physical interaction. Social chatter isn't, in this case, unnecessary noise, it's a social acknowledgement of the other person's existence and is necessary to emotional health for most people. I'll try to find the citation for that article, if anyone's interested.

Yes, I'm interested. It sounds like a plausible theory.

Generally what happens with me, I get into an involved discussion about the weather. I don't know if people like it, yeah... I'm able to just be like "yeah, it's rainy" Sometimes I'll bring up why I like dislike/rain and keep the conversation going like that. Like "I hate when it's rainy cuz then I can't rollerblade!" so it's sorta my way of turning small talk into big talk, or steering the conversation in my direction.

(The "you" in the following paragraphs is the hypothetical you; they do not refer to the person whose post is quoted above.)

Probably a bit like watching a group of talented singers sing out something a capella, and experiencing it as a deaf person. You intellectually gather that they're doing something somewhat beyond your sensorium, because they're sure doing funny things with their mouths, breathing and posture. But damned if you can tell what. And, you only have the word of others that the thing you're missing is both profound and completely outside of your experience.

You can't figure out what the hoopla is all about, and damned if you're going to try to ape those movements yourself in the hope of contributing to the tapestry of a piece of music you will never be able to hear or sense or partake in. You'll just make an ass of yourself.

(Yes, I am small talk-impaired also.)

The researcher is Robin I. M. Dunbar: Dunbar 1993
and Dunbar 1998

He also has a book called Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language.

Thanks, pschristmas, I find this kind of thing very interesting.

Actually, it occurred to me once that "small talk" served a purpose, like priming a pump. It keeps the flow of social interaction going. Not that I'm any good at it.

I don't particularly like small talk (chit chat) myself as i never understood it and i admit its not my natural strength.