Understanding Autism: Why I Struggle with Social Occasions Part 1
Like many autistic people, I am often told that I am antisocial, but this is not true. Autistic people are sociable, we just do it differently.
I have always struggled with the whole concept of a party for adults. What are they for, and what are you supposed to do at them? I suppose it does not help that I have never drunk alcohol, apart from a couple of very painful attempts in my teens, and to many people it seems that to “party” means to get drunk.
But the main problem I have with parties for adults is the lack of any clear purpose or structure, beyond abusing alcohol. If they are for meeting others and chatting, why is there loud music playing? If they are for dancing, why is the venue almost always somebody’s home, where there is no space for doing so?
It is not that I do not enjoy being around other people. I really do. But a party seems to manage to combine everything I struggle with into a perfect storm of terror for me. By contrast, children’s parties make perfect sense. When my children were young, rather than having an individual birthday party for each of them, we had one big party every summer where they all invited their friends, and we had a huge party for about 5 hours on a Saturday afternoon. But the crucial part of this was that every minute of those 5 hours was scheduled, from party games to crafts, food and drink to competitions. The children were always kept busy and never left to stand there wondering what they should be doing! If only adult events were like this.
Parties may be the perfect storm for me, but I struggle with most social events. Again, not because I do not like meeting people, but for a whole variety of reasons that make them difficult, exhausting, and full of opportunities to get things wrong, be categorised as odd, or be told that I am embarrassing.
Perhaps the biggest problem I have with social occasions is that the one common denominator that links them all is small talk. Social occasions for adults are, almost by definition, about speaking to other people. Again, I am not averse to speaking to others. But the types of conversation that I enjoy rarely happen at social occasions. I love to have in-depth discussions about subjects that I really care about with others who feel the same way, or to share knowledge and experiences. To be completely honest, I also prefer to have these discussions over email or text, but I recognise that others prefer to speak! I also prefer talk that leads to action. All too often I find that talk is seen as equivalent to action in addressing problems, when it is very rare that this is even a little bit true.
I am not, however, an intellectual snob, or at least I hope I am not. I am just as happy discussing the latest episode of Doctor Who as the meaning of life. But what I cannot bring myself to embrace is the entirely superficial nature of much of the conversation I hear around me at social occasions. I am just not that interested in the children of people I have just met and will likely never meet again, or which beach a stranger will be spending their holiday on. I do watch a lot of TV and am happy to discuss that, but rarely the big shows that others seem to talk about.
I think what a lot of this comes down to is that I cannot suppress the constant question in my mind of “what is the point of this?” when small talk is happening. I know it is seen as polite, but why? What does it achieve? I should also clarify that I am not uninterested in anybody else at all. When I care about somebody, I want to hear about their life, their difficulties, and share their joy in triumphs. I just find it very hard to generate that level of interest in complete strangers whom I will likely never meet again. Nor do I want to share anything personal about myself in these situations. I have to know someone for a while before I am happy sharing anything more than basic information about myself.
Who can remember what was said in small talk even a few minutes later? I suspect it is part of some elaborate neurotypical social handshake, a bit like the noise fax machines used to make when they were connecting, but just like that noise, it is in a language that I do not understand. The same applies to more formal situations, like work meetings, where the first 5 minutes seem to always consist of idle chatter when we could be getting on with what we are there to discuss.
The bottom line is that I do not understand the point of small talk, and I do not know what to say when I am in those situations. Since most social occasions are either built on small talk or consist of small talk and little else, I am always going to struggle with them.
What is interesting is that all it takes is a good activity, and I will rapidly become completely invested. Make the event a quiz or some other form of competition or task, and I am right there. Again, it must have substance. Ice breakers designed to facilitate yet more small talk do not do it for me! I need purpose in almost everything that I do, and small talk alone just feels like one of the most pointless exercises imaginable to me!
This is then compounded by the fact that not wanting to engage in small talk often seems to lead to you being labelled rude, weird, or antisocial. I have been told I am all of these throughout my life. While I now embrace being weird, I struggle with the idea that remaining quiet rather than just spouting meaningless chatter makes me rude!
Small talk is a major barrier for me in social occasions, but it is far from the only issue. I will say more next time!
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I'm with you on the small talk! Useless. Now, banter back and forth with people you actually know, that's fun! Common interests always make it better, so of course people you at least know enough about to say hey, how's that xyz project of yours doing? That's more interesting. Or talking about anything besides weather, soccer games, and TV is much better. Anything that requires some level of intellectual engagement rather than zero brain power.
I hint at some of this in my recent post on Literalism. As in, if you ask how I am, I might really try to tell you if I am caught off guard. I mention the dreaded small talk. I think it is quite common that many of us want deep, authentic conversations and find vapid, shallow, insincere conversations to be exhausting.