Autistic Small Talk

An encounter with a stranger that actually was positive and left me buoyed up briefly.

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Photo by Neil Daftary on Unsplash

Hello people,

I had a different encounter the other day. As a very introverted autist I don’t really ‘do’ people much. It’s hard for me to feel comfortable in these situations and I often avoid them deliberately, even cancelling events etc because the anxiety about the overwhelm is too much. It makes me seem quite a wuss at times, but I’m old enough now to not really give a flying fig about it all.

Anyways, the other day I went to the drs and I’d already wound myself up about how the interaction there was going to be. I’d waited the usual 3 and a bit weeks for the appointment, written a page of notes including what I felt would be a good outcome and not slept properly for at least 2 nights for writing and rewriting scripts in my head about what I was going to say, why and how. The appointment was very early for me, 8:30 in the morning and I didn’t sleep from dawn, around 5am, until it was nearly time to get up as I was worrying I wouldn’t get up in time, however I slept for the 5 mins before the alarm went off - go figure. The dr was actually very nice, didn’t say any bad things about my weight, listened to what I said and my preferred outcomes happened.

However, this wasn’t my different encounter. After the docs we set off to the pharmacy and found it was closed, so sat in the car until it was due to open and I joined a lady waiting outside the metal shutter and she started talking to me. I was quite surprised as I was wearing a mask because I have a bad cough and don’t want people to feel I’m infectious, I’m not, and be wary and judgemental of me. But it didn’t put her off and we had quite an amusing bit of banter between us for about 3 minutes whilst the shutters were slowly, and late, opened. Considering I really don’t like talking to strange people this was a) quite pleasant and b) buoyed me up a little - I am a commensurate masker in these types of situations, 30 years accompanying my husband in the RAF taught me a lot of skills, and so I am able to do this quite well.

It started with me standing silently waiting for the shutter to be raised and went something like this (there was a little more but I can’t remember it).

‘They keep rattling it and making me think it’s opening.” Them

“Oh they must enjoy teasing us.” Me. Shutter rattles again.

“ Oo, maybe this is it? It’s already 9:02.” Me.

“ Ah sadly not. Perhaps it’s a game they play?” Them.

“Maybe. Well that will teach me to have an early appointment.” Me. It this point a worker appears with a key for the electronic raising mechanism.

“Ah, a key.” Them. Shutter begins to raise, slowly.

“If I were a few decades younger I’d commando roll under that, just for fun.” Me

She laughs.

“ But now, I’d struggle to get down there let alone up again on the other side.” Me

We both chuckle and the shutter is raised and we line up silently in the good old British fashion and only speak again to say goodbye when she leaves. She did have the most glorious old gold Doc Martins on.

So as a person who hates small talk and talking to strangers why was this exchange different? I’ve mused and I think it’s because there was nothing personal in it, no asking how I was, or anything about my life. It was all centred around waiting for a rickety shutter to raise. It was silly. It was chat about an inanimate object. It wasn’t intrusive, I didn’t need to look at the person, the shutter being the thing that held my attention the most. I actually enjoy our little interaction. It was fun.

Looking further I think this was because it was short, no more than a couple of mins. Had it dragged on I would have had nothing left to say, something happened to comment on every few seconds, making it easy to know what to talk about. It wasn’t personal.

Deep, personal talks are fabulous with people I know and trust, I can chat for hours. If I don’t known you or trust you I’m not going to talk much at all. I can be very quiet at times or incredibly gregarious at others, it all depends how comfortable I feel with you and how much I trust you. And if we share a special interest then stopping me is going to be the problem. I think is why with most of my friendships from work etc worked because most of the time we talked about work in the main. It was rare to find someone to open up to. Even those work talks were me masking, talking about what we both knew and they wanted to talk about. Common ground yes. It’s a good starting point.

Anyways, no real point to this post other than I had a fun albeit brief encounter. Let me know if you’ve ever had fun small talk chat or if no matter what you hate it. What are your topics you love to deep dive into?

Till next time.

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