Thoughts on why small talk is so uniquely painful

I'm old, but it took a lot of time to network/socialize. I know there's books/material to socialize now. I have learned to grey rock, and just go neutral with giving a response to most situations.
This is a learned thing. No one teached us this back in the 80s or earlier. Life isn't easy, we learn as we get older. Yes, it's hard, but if some random person asks about your day, just say "great, how about you?". Put the focus back on them. Let them talk. Just listen. Oh, their grandma passed away last week? "Damn, I'm sorry to hear that. Let's remember her legacy, and know that she lived to her fullest."
We are all still animals at the end of the day. You can make mistakes! Learn from them, and move on. Learn as you go.

"I am functioning within established parameters."
- LOW ON CYAN
- Living the dream

I believe that part of the problem - at least in my case - is that typical person immediately sees 3-4 possible generic answers to such questions.
For me... It's like opening Pandora Box and have the brain flooded with not just answers but long chains of interactions, where none leads to anything positive. A "simple" question is like like an abyss that's gonna suck you down and exhaust you while you're trying to escape it so much, that you feel like lying down and trying to remember that air is meant to be inhaled again after it's exhaled...
There was this scene in the original Terminator movie, where the robot sees the spinning list of possible answers to "cat question". For me, this list doesn't stop. Even when the conversation is already finished, the list continues to spin.
- The "typical" person doesn't see 3 or 4 answers, they have prepared a few generic answers to those small questions, and anyone can do that. Unless you're really feeling different, and have enough intimacy with the asker to be honest, it's just a game of tic-tac-toe that anyone can learn.
  How are you doing? Fine, how's life treating you?
  Nice weather, eh? I've had better.
  Etc.
  
  Nobody is saying that neurodivergent people can't do small talk, it's that it is oftentimes a dreadful experience for them. You do understand the difference, yes?
  It's a bit like telling someone genetically predisposed to disliking cilantro because it tastes like soap to "just eat cliantro... everyone can do it!"
  
  The “typical” person doesn’t see 3 or 4 answers, they have prepared a few generic answers to those small questions, and anyone can do that.
  Having a few generic answers is the same thing meant by "seeing 3 or 4 answers".
  
  anyone can do that.
  ...
  Imagine that somebody places before you a dozen baskets all filled with white balls the size roughly of a ping-pong ball.
  They are all identical. There's no way to discern one from another.
  Then he says: pick the right ball, but be warned, picking some among them will result in a member of your family dying a horrible, gruesome death. Now choose, you have 20 seconds.
  And then he switches off the light.
  That's how it is.
  
  First downvote on Lemmy because it's simply not true. To some people, smalltalk does come naturally.
  Also, having "a few generic answers" does not solve the problem. The mind still fills with way too many thoughts.
- Since I think no one will see my comment at the bottom of the OP im going to reply it here as I think it's relevant to your content.
  For me, in addition to this, more specifically it's the energy to pull up that info and analyze how I am. Like I don't know the answer to that question and that's why it's so annoying. Now I need to analyze my day, decide what parts mean what to me and weigh the average basically, and then decide if that's appropriate to share/if the person really wants to hear the truth of that, then pull up my files of pre-prepared phrases for the question that fits most closely with the truth since not answering truthfully is close to impossible for me.
  
  I'll be honest, it really feels like you're overanalyzing it. You really can just say you're fine and go about your day. You don't need to analyze your day or even know how you're feeling at the moment.
  
  Yes, exactly this. I don't know how I'm fucking doing, don't ask me that question, I don't want to know.

Here's my attempt at a hopefully helpful explanation:
Almost always the small talk itself isn't meant to be a "real" conversation. It's deliberately surface level and repetitive because of this. Think of it like a verbal handshake. A standard greeting that is essentially "I am initiating a conversation" but with an extra layer obscuring that because communication is complicated and there's a ton happening under the surface.
There's a little judgment step prior to engaging in actual conversation to establish that a conversation is or isn't about to happen, if this person is friendly, are they communicating on the same level, etc. The small talk has essentially lost its literal meaning entirely and is all subtext to establish these things. "How's it going?" is just them initiating the conversion protocol, and so taking it literally is like sending back an error message.
If you feel saying "good" to a question like "how's it going" is lying, it might be helpful to think of the question as not actually a question but just a collection of random sounds we've assigned to starting up a conversation and the replies are no different. They aren't actually asking, the words don't even mean that in their head, and your answer just needs to fall into the right parameters that show you're doing the same. Or just have a few "canned" responses that are ready to go so they don't need much thought or sarcastic so you don't feel like it's lying. I'm a fan of "oh you know, livin' the dream" or "I'm surviving" for these sorts of things.
If they actually want real conversation, it'll come after the small talk has established the connection.
- My favorite example of how correct this is is how conversations often go with my friends I haven't spoken to in awhile. We will perform the cursory social protocol "hey how are you" "good how are you?" "Good thanks, what's new with you?" "Not much, you?" "Not much" ... And then we often go back to, how have you been? Which is the signal that we've transitioned into the real question seeking the real conversation. Even though it's kind of all the same question in different forms.
- Exactly! I haven't wasted any mental energy on the exchange in years since I realized it's not a real question. I generally just stick with "hangin' in there," which isn't too good but not too bad either, so it feels truthful enough.
  If somebody asks me, my mental process is "they're not really asking, it's just a formality. Hurry up, say the thing, figure out what they REALLY want, and move on." Saves time and energy.
  At this point, I only assume I actually need to answer if it's someone close that I haven't seen in a while and needs to be caught up. Even then, most of the time it's the same answer because I don't have shit going on, hahah

Serious question from a non neurodivergent. Why don't you tell the truth? What's wrong with that?
Sorry, just for me to understand because I have no experience
- Imagine if you're working as a cashier and you say to your customer, "hey, what's up?" and then they start a ten minutes monologue about everything that's happened to them today and how that's made them feel. You're just sitting there like "I'm at work, I'm just being polite, you're holding up a line of customers, I'll get in trouble with my boss for being so slow, etc.". All you wanted was for the customer to say "Yeah, you?" and move on.
  In the UK and America, and probably most places, saying "how are you?" or "what's up?" is the equivalent of saying "hello" or "I would like to start a conversation with you" -- it's very rare that you actually want to know about the other person's day. For a lot of autistic people though, we take those questions literally.
  Edit to add: you can't always assume that people don't care about how you are. Got in trouble with my doctor for just saying "fine" when he was actually asking what is wrong with me. So it always feels like you have to make this calculation of what does the person really mean? I understand that neuro-typical people just sort of magically know the context in a way that autistic people don't - I think it's just a lived experience where we both have to say "I don't understand how that is, but I trust that it's the way you experience things" and move on.
  
  And what's the problem to always reply "not too bad", as if it was a normal greeting? Without thinking, as if saying "hello". Why is it difficult?
  Again, asking to understand
  
  This is a highly cultural thing. Where I live, cashier (great example) are told by the manager to not speak with the customer. The interaction is just "Hi!", the price, "Thanks! Bye!".
  It's just respect and politeness. I don't practice small talks at all. People don't care about it. It's not their business.
  To illustrate, how it is here. People don't make friends outside secondary school or universities depending on the degree they have. I know people who still have the same friends for 50 years. People are not open.
  
  Maybe cashiers shouldn't ask questions they don't want the answers to
- The truth about how I am? Because they don't care. They don't actually want a long infodump about personal details of my life.
  
  I just give short honest answer. If they are interested - might turn into a good conversation if not, I don't care. But I'm also not neurodivergent - just not too much into small talk.
- Because people get weirded out and start to exclude me when I start a 10min monologue on my emotional state and life situation instead of "I'm fine, thanks"
  
  I have a solution for you. Move to a small city/town of south of Europe. You'll get 15 minutes monologue as a reply to your 10 minutes monologue. If you are talking with some older lady, 20 minutes of detailed description of age-related physical struggles.
  That's how old style social networks are built there. That's actually pretty nice, once one get used to it.
  Drawback, no jobs there and you need to learn a romance language
  
  Try this one: "I'm fucked up, you?"
  No need for a monologue, just go tit-for-tat. If they care, they'll keep talking, if not, then no loss.
- The Truth? About how I am? How the heck am I supposed to do that? I suppose I could tell you my general level of energy. I could tell you the character of my thoughts and what sort of things caught my attention recently. I could think back to when I last had a clearly identifiable emotion, what I was thinking at the time, and if it's still relevant. I could tell you about physical sensations in my body - do I feel tense, is my head clear, is my pulse elevated, are my ears ringing, how grounded do I feel? Or how I'm experiencing the outside world - how is the temperature, the humidity, the light, the noise? I could think about things that happened recently, or where I am now generally in life, or my worries or ideas for the future, and does any of that relate to how I am in the here and now. And eventually, maybe, after far more intimacy and far more uncertainty than you'd likely be comfortable with, I might tentatively offer some emotional label as to how I am.
  Can't vouch for its accuracy tho. I just inhabit this brain, I don't know everything that goes on here.
  
  But what about a general mood. Are you able to recognize one? Like "today is a sh*tty day" or "I feel good because I've eaten an ice cream". Just to understand
  
  So much this!
- It's just a greeting. The proper response is "fine, and you?" The person will dig deeper if they wanted a bigger answer.
  
  I live in Sweden. If you ask anyone here how they're doing they will give you a detailed account of how they're doing.
  It was really confusing for me when I went to the US and I had to tell every store employee about my aching back due to the hotel having a soft bed and the cold I got from the airplane AC.
- Because no one wants to be trauma dumped on, especially when they don't have a way to escape (working).
- I think it comes up to the culture you're in and the specifics of the situation. I often hear the question asked on call in shows from the US where it seems most people say it as basically a greeting, not always pausing for a response before continuing. In my own culture we don't ask as much and usually only of people we have a bit more of a connection to. I imagine that the cultures represented in the talk shows would pressure one into answering in a way that doesn't hold up the conversation. This also applies when you are already exhausted, the reasoning there just being that an honest answer will prolong the conversation and probably require talking about emotions which at least to me can be exhausting on its own.
- Because it will make people uncomfortable and we will be scolded or face negative consequences at work
  
  Then the standard answer to not answer is "not too bad, and you?" , finally: "Nice to hear, see you!".
  That's it, it's like "hi" "hi" "bye" "bye" but longer

In Finland nobody asks you that and if somebody does, everybody gives a direct and correct answer. It is one of the perks in any Finn that makes it hard for us to discuss with Americans if we're not used to them.
- I've never wanted to move to Finland more (and I already want that, a lot) lol
  (E: from UK, we also think Americans are weird, but still have this superficial politeness bullshit that gets so much in the way of communication)
- Mostly the same in Germany, except for business context.
  
  Hmmm. I live in Germany and I do small talk everyday at work.
  Hallo! Na? Wie geht's? Gut, danke! Und dir? Mir geht's auch gut danke. Sehr schön. Schönen Tag! Gleichfalls!
  All of it takes less than 10 seconds (I work in a hospital).
- That's one of the reasons I love Europe the most

For me talking just to talk is akward, when the conversation has no topic it is hard for me to participate.

It gets better over time. I think working on self awareness helps. If we have a better idea of how we actually feel we can at least answer honestly. It's a little trickier when concealing the truth is required. I had a boss who often paused for a moment and said 'I don't know' when people asked 'how are you?' It disarmed people and they tended not to ask. He made no effort to engage in small talk and that suited me. Looking back he must have been on the spectrum.

I’m not neurodivergent, but small talk is fundamentally a conversation with no other purpose than to maintain, build and express social relationships. There’s no substantive information being passed. So I guess it is a concentrated dose of some people’s worst nightmare.
By the way - there’s nothing wrong in a brief truthful answer if you a feeling a bit down, or you pulled a muscle in your neck or whatever
- By the way - there’s nothing wrong in a brief truthful answer if you a feeling a bit down, or you pulled a muscle in your neck or whatever
  That’s how it should be. Unfortunately, there’s a fair amount of people who take your honesty as a direct affront to them. After all, how do I dare to say I’m not doing so well? At that point, the socially acceptable thing to do is to display some empathy for me, and they don’t like me enough to put that effort! I shouldn’t have strayed away from the script!
  
  The question is if it's important to be socially acceptable. I personally don't think it is. I've stopped holding back anything or "lying" like mentioned in this post, and sure I rub some people the wrong way, but why would I care? I just don't associate with them in that case.
  
  Yeah and they might not directly respond to you negatively in that moment but they will ABSOLUTELY talk shit about you to their friends about how weird you are for "going off about something" or "going on and on about nothing, I was just like wrap it up lol! 🙄" And then you're the weirdo who talks to much and people avoid you and even actively disrespect you
  And they will do this in front of you about others so we learn very early on that you have to lie and not speak too much or too long or too passionately because some people are like this and will talk shit about you and you never know who is going to be a real person to you or who is going to be a fake person who will talk about you behind your back so you end up just playing the social protocol game like everyone else but inside you're like "this fucking sucks I hate this stupid fucking Game, No one actually cares about the answer, I wish we could just not talk to anyone unless we actually wanted to"
  
  I’ve never had that happen to me. I’ll cheerfully say ‘feeling a bit rough, how are you? And I’ve never really had people take affront. … that I’ve noticed 🙂
- I am neurodivergent, so maybe you can explain for me how a conversation devoid of content builds a relationship.
  "How are you?"
  "Good/fine/ok, how are you?"
  "I'm good."
  It's the same forced, templated script everyone uses 100 times a day just to navigate being alive, and will be forgotten as soon as you walk away.
  
  It doesn't, and it doesn't intend to. Small talk is meant to give small doses of information about the other person, which may or may not be used in subsequent interactions. For instance, a brief exchange of comments about the state of the climate is not so much about whether it's raining or not but to gauge the tone of the other person and their facial expressions, from which other information is inferred, correctly or incorrectly.
  Which brings us to the next point: small talk sucks for autistic people not only because its utility is concealed to us, but because most allistics are going to misinterpret our nonverbal cues by comparing them to the cues of other allistic people.
  
  It made more sense when I started thinking of humans as animals. In that context it's like dogs sniffing butts or ants touching antennae when they meet. I eventually settled on a few generic responses that felt less fake than "fine" (idk why "fine" rankles me so much but "not too bad" doesn't, but eh) but didn't elicit further questions, and that made it slightly easier.
  
  It says ‘we are of the same tribe, we understand the same conventions’, I’m non-threatening
  It’s the equivalent of chimpanzees grooming or us British offering to make someone a cup of tea - it’s not because we think the person is thirsty.

I'm not autistic, but I got sick of this stupid expected "how are you?", "fine" nonsense. It's meaningless. Now I just give a quick honest answer. Nobody really finds it weird and it makes for much more engaging non-monotonous interactions.
You can even answer negatively if you manage to tone it right. "Eh, bit stressed", but then in a positive, non-confrontational, tone just add "but how are you?".
As long as you keep it brief, the other person can question it if they are genuinely interested, and then you can have actual conversation, or they won't if they're not really interested, it works fine either way.
- The way I understand "how are you?" is not like an actual question, but a simple form of greeting, like "Hi". There is no need to answer it, you might as well say the same thing back again.
  
  Yeah, but you don't get organic conversation from that. If that's how you want it, that's fine and normal - but otherwise if you reply with a small honest answer that doesn't reveal too much, it doesn't put pressure on the other person to respond, but it does leave it open for them to. I just find it as a simple, somewhat unorthodox thing that does lead to better connections with people
- Isn't that what small talk is, what does everyone else do
  
  Most people just say "good and you?" even if they don't actually feel particularly good.
  
  what does everyone else do
  Lie and move on.

For me, life isn't that difficult. I work construction, and apparently that is the world where it's ok to be weird. I answer honestly to every question I'm asked, and people either think you're joking or just appreciate the honesty. When I get the "how are you today", I normally respond "well I'm here, so not great", and that's totally fine
- Agreed, I always love when I get to work with construction guys because they are some of the realest people I get to meet.

I just answer honestly. I don't have time to be a fake person.
- Yeah you can answer however you want just keep it short.
  "I'm having a tough week, but I'm working through it. How are you?"
  
  My problem with this is that while I don't like lying I also really don't want to talk about my personal problems with someone I'm not intimately close to. So honestly, I would prefer if people who aren't close to me don't ask the question in the first place.
  Like I'm not going to tell you that I'm having mental health issues this week and I'm about to lose my shit because everything feels overwhelming and I'm not sure it's worth it anymore. So no I'm not really "getting through it" right now. But it also is going to be very challenging for me to lie to you right now also.
  So maybe don't presume that we have the right to that information in the first place and just say something in greeting that doesn't require someone to divulge, honestly or not, private information about themselves.
  I'm going to try to implement a "Hi, hope you're having a nice day" instead of how are you to people I'm not close with in practicing this.
- You can be honest in this society if you are exactly average and have no opinions others would dislike. :)
  
  It's not that bad. Only if it's really important to you that noone dislikes you or are bothered your opinion. Unless you have some seriously inflamatory opinions it's not the end of the world.
  
  Such as? What kind of opinion would you use to reply to "how is it going?" just to understand

Many people like Americans say as a trained friendly greeting "hi, how are you". Other people like Chinese say "hi, have you eaten (had rice) yet". They both simply need to be viewed as greetings. Neither actually want to know your full life story of your eating habits or the many bad things that may have happened to you in your day week or life.
Don't try it here in Germany. Often people will try and test you and tell you a long story of many bad things to see if you "care". But it is in fact missing an important cultural contex. It is not that they don't care if you have eaten or that your wife is dieing of cancer... It is that is not what they were truly asking. It should be interpreted simply as a friendly greeting such as good morning. It is as inappropriate to responding to good morning with, "no it isn't. It's a terrible morning. I had diarrhea this morning and my cat died". The lady at the grocery store doesn't need these details and was simply being nice.
- that's the point of the post. ND folks tend to be bothered by this phenomenon. It's not that we don't already understand what you're saying. Many have commented here saying what you've just said, and like, yeah 100% and that's the issue. We get that it's a cultural norm that no one actually wants a real answer to.
  But autistic folks have a brain that is wired to take things at face value. We take things literally. We struggle to ignore the literal meanings of words and feel compelled to respond with our true response to that literal interpretation. We don't want to live constantly replacing the literal meaning of words with the NT meaning. This post is one example of the seemingly constant game of NT society that does not mean the words that they say. We are tired! Say what you mean! And stop treating us like we don't get it. We fucking get it. And we think it's fucking stupid and don't want to play.
  Sorry. This post keeps getting me in trouble bc I get riled up. I'm not yelling at * you * I'm just yelling to the sky with my fist shaking in the air.
  
  I understand. And that's understandable. My comment was directed to society as a whole, and specifically non autistic people.
- To the chinese greeting "Have you eaten yet?" as I understood it is fine to just answer factually what you have eaten, it could even be a decent start for small talk. Much better than "How are you?".
  
  I was just thinking this morning about what are we actually trying to say in America with the "How are you?" fake question so that I can try inserting that instead and I think it's really like the Russian hello, Здравствуйте (zdrast-vyui'tye) which literally translates to "Have health!". We're not really asking how someone is, we are trying to say "I hope you're well"
  I could see myself being able to apply this concept in like a retail situation by saying "Hi, hope you're having a nice day 🙂" when I come up to the counter instead of "hi how are you?"

I worked customer service for some jobs and have a system. If people ask how you’re doing, they don’t want an answer. They want you to say something corny and friendly, use the same tone and accent they do.
- Haha yeah in retail interactions I don't even answer, I just reply with "how are you" it always makes me laugh how absurd social etiquette can be
  "Hi how are you?" "😌 How are you?"
  😂¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯
- I've work in customer service too, but luckily in a different culture. Here it is just
  Heisann!
  Hei, [what the customer wants help with]
  I tend to forget when I'm visiting other cultures. A bartender in New Orleans, US got pretty upset with me when I just started to look at the menu and order, not do the whole "how are you" thingy
  
  Lucky you! It was a good skill for me to learn though, I still use my customer service persona when I have to talk on the phone or in person with strangers.
  
  I have many a time reflected on how thankful i am for this, it's to the point that my autism just tends to manifest as being the perfect customer which helps me A LOT with feeling like i belong.

For me, I realize that I need to just say a couple of words to make it a pleasant exchange, but not being able to really share my feelings feels frustrating, kinda like how a kid feels frustrated when they need to moderate their feelings. A lot of the time I'm really exhausted and unhappy too so that makes it worse that I can't vent and have to moderate myself cuz I'm in a perpetual state of trying to keep my mask from slipping from burnout

ugh working retail this is the 'question' that bugs me the most. No, this customer does not actually care about how I'm feeling, they're just continuing a shitty tradition that I want no part in. By now I just straight faced, monotone 'I'm doing good how about you' in hopes that they understand that I don't care, finish the exchange and move on. On my worst days I just don't answer.

Don't lie then, just go "Eh." and shrug.
- I'm not neurodivergent, but I loathe small talk just the same. Giving an "eh" type answer is indeed best as it tends to end the conversation. Concocting a lie or even giving a more involved honest answer only encourages the conversation to continue. For me the goal is to make it stop.
- I've started doing this. My mental health is in such a state I simply no longer have the energy to outright lie (masking, which I can't help, is already exhausting enough) so I just say "not great", and depending on who the person is and how sincerely I think they're asking will or will not go in to any detail beyond that...
  Then I spend the next days or weeks or more analysing every word I told them and wonder if I said too much or went too personal, but stopping myself in the moment is just too much when there's so much else going on. :/
- This is basically how I handle this, shrug and say, "Ah, y'know..."

Hey there, how's it going?
"Good!" - feeling alright
"Hanging in there" - feeling a little rough but pulling through
"It's going" - bad/tired (existential)
- Haha how is this so universal. Definitely have used these scripts.

This is one of the main reasons I switched to saying Happy Saturday. No one really want to answer the "How are you" question and I probably don't really care unless you are family. Saying Happy Day is also passing on joy.

Ah, so fear of "accidental lying" isn't just me and is in fact an autistic trait?

Seeing all of these posts that I agree with in this community is really opening my eyes…
My 4 year old daughter was diagnosed with autism and I’ve been learning so much just through her and some of the readings I’ve done.
Excuse my ignorance, but is this a trait that is passed down? If so, I’m trying to figure out how did I make it this far in my life without the proper coping mechanisms.
- Yes, it is genetic. If you are a woman, that makes a lot of sense as the diagnostic criteria is only now starting to catch girls more frequently, even though it's still very flawed. Girls (and non-white people) are missed because the diagnostic criteria was developed studying young white boys exclusively. It turns out symptoms of autism are very variable and girls are much more likely to mask their symptoms and fly under the radar as just shy or quirky.
  Here's Kate Kahle on why autism is missed in girls https://youtu.be/UI6kObHls-4
  Here's a YouTube channel from a mom who was late diagnosed after her child was diagnosed https://youtu.be/zoXmrGtybts
  Autism Instagram talking about how the older generations of their families are all full of autism and just don't know it https://www.instagram.com/p/CvMwpDNxiPL/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== https://www.instagram.com/p/Ct1VlsMxrSn/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== https://www.instagram.com/p/CmFFZuDMjXJ/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
  Scientific paper on heritability of autism "heritability was estimated to be 83%, suggesting that genetic factors may explain most of the risk for ASD. " https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5818813/
  
  Wow, thanks for all the information. I’m a black male and I would have to say that it’s not really talked about at all, because it’s a sign of seeming “weak”.
  That YouTube video you linked hit home and explains a lot of things that my ex partner did such as not taking care of her hygiene properly, and I just couldn’t understand at all.
  I’m thinking mostly that she was autistic and I’m starting to see that I demonstrate some signs, but not as much as she did. I’ve already started medication for anxiety and I can tell a world of difference in my daily interactions with people.
- This community has my fav memes. Most relatable.

Also it inflates the meaning of the question. It took me quite a lot of time to realize that my friends ask me how I am and really want to know it.
(I'm not autistic fyi.)

Now I understand why I don't have a problem with small talk. The people I make small talk with aren't assholes!
- What do you mean?!
  
  Whenever I make small talk with my friends or family, I always tell the truth and they never get mad at me for it. If they ask me how my day was, and I say “not great”, they’re more than willing to listen as I tell them why I had a bad day. I never have to lie and say everything’s alright.

Honestly, I have had thoughts of just unloading any baggage on my mind onto the person initiating small talk, with the goal of making them uncomfortable.
Stranger: Hello sir, how are y-
Me: My day was fucking horrible. First, my car caught a flat tire, then my cat vomited all over my carpet, and then this random person on the internet who I don't know called me a jollock and blah blah blah...
It'd make them feel how I feel when strangers come up and talk to me.

since in most other languages people don't ask "how are you" would this problem exist in other languages?
- I would love to learn more about autistic experiences in other countries outside America. What are the social protocols that they struggle with?

Reading these kind of things always makes me think to see a doctor.. that has been way too hard for way too long.. too late anyway I guess..
Now I see these interactions as functions: it's not inviduals acting in those cases, just society going on. I stopped thinking about the person asking and now I see them like a traffic light going red and green: not a problem.
Am I still weird? Yes. Is that my problem? No.

Dan's final comment succinctly calls out the situations which irk me the most. You asked me how I'm doing. I answered honestly... and now you're going to judge me for that? Yeah, nah. I'd rather just not answer at all, thanks, instead of dealing with that bullcrap.
Which, over the course of time, led me to the analytical conclusion that more often than not, most people don't actually care how -- or even if -- I answer at all, unless I make the "mistake" of answering honestly when I'm not feeling perfectly peachy. That's why I almost always answer with something vaguely nonsensical when asked how I'm doing by random strangers, such as, "Howdy, howdy!" Most of them are so locked into their autopilot that they only ever hear that first syllable, and immediately think I just asked them how they're doing... so they reflexively toss back their obligatory, "Oh, I'm fine." Once in a blue moon, one of them will skip a beat and realize what I actually said just after their reply, making the passing interaction vaguely uncomfortable for them. Which, you know... is actually just fine by me, since that's how I feel almost all the time.

@MadgePickles@lemmy.dbzer0.com The phrase "can't complain" referring to the fact that if I did, there would be consequences. I try to assume that if someone wants to know, they'll ask again when they hear a nonanswer, giving me more time to do the math.

For me, I'm moderately ok with the whole task and "lying", though I'm in a "faint praise" culture where I can more or less express myself somewhat adequately through "polite faint praise".
The problem I struggle with is that I really have no idea if the "small talk" is going well or not. Just can't get a read on most people as to what they were hoping to achieve with the small talk and whether any of my actions were well received or came off as rude. So it's an anxiety minefield to start off any conversation where I often carry plenty of doubts into the rest of the conversation.
If people were more happily like "Actually I feel X because of Y ... but that's ok happy to get started with stuff now" then I'd be much better off most of the time.
- What I think I have determined people are doing with small talk is that they feel obligated to talk to people even if they have nothing to say. So there are these cultural scripts of discussion topics that are considered standard and appropriate. They aren't particularly interested in the other person, just in fulfilling the cultural script. So as long as you perform your part in the script they are happy to be seen engaging with another human doing the appropriate motions.
  
  Yea, this tracks. And so I suppose, this "performance" is the "lie" I struggle with. I'm happy to lie about how I'm going, to an extent, but the lie of completely performing without any care for whether it's an actual conversation ... that will never not feel awful and tiring for me.

I hate smalltalk. It's a waste of time.
- Haha! You're sooo right....yeah... So, how's it going?

You could say "I feel the way I usually feel" (which is what I always say).
It's truthful (probably).
It confuses the other one, giving you a second to breathe.
It could be perceived as funny (as unconventional) by others, making you be seen positive.

This is why my default response is now either “alive”, or in the case of “how’s it going?”, “it’s going”