Image text: @agnieszkasshoes: “Part of what makes small talk so utterly debilitating for many of us who are neurodivergent is that having to smile and lie in answer to questions like, “how are you?” is exhausting to do even once, and society makes us do it countless times a day.”
@LuckyHarmsGG: “It’s not just the lie, it’s the energy it takes to suppress the impulse to answer honestly, analyze whether the other person wants the truth, realize they almost certainly don’t, and then have to make the DECISION to lie, every single time. Over and over. Decision fatigue is real”
@agnieszkasshoes: “Yes! The constant calculations are utterly exhausting - and all under the pressure of knowing that if you get it “wrong” you will be judged for it!”
My addition: 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.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CvPSP-2xU4h/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
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.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] I try to change it up, legitimately like “Are you hydrated?”
Some of these are more confounding than “how are you?” (are you… implying my heart is not… like … red?) but asking actual questions to greet people is a really nice thing that I’d love to see more widely adopted:
@jarfil @Shialac “How are you?” “Forever hating that question, you?”