Protip: if you ask how they're doing you have to talk less.
this post was submitted on 13 May 2026
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Yes, but i have to use more brain power to pay attention
I've gotten better about this but yeah I used to do it constantly.
That depends on the culture. I have a british coworker who says "hi, how are you" as a greeting, not as a question.
Also the British custom of asking if you're alright which must adhere to the following script:
"Hiya, you alright?"
"Oh yeah not so bad. You?"
"Yeah not bad."
You can deviate slightly ("can't complain") but under no circumstances must you discuss whether you're actually alright or not. I've genuinely seen this exchange happen at a funeral, with the widower being like "Yeah not so bad..."
when i went to Britain the first time (as an american), everyone kept asking me if i was alright and i thought there was something wrong with me like i was bleeding or smth
Well you have to consider perspective. He's doing way better than his wife...
Hey, LadyButterfly, I have this problem all the time.
I'm doing great, thanks, kbye.
I find it's best to just avoid people wherever possible
Yes. I always attributed this to my social anxiety (which led me to being very isolated growing up, minimal social interactions, etc.) but I can also see how it could've been both. At this point, I've never truly felt confident enough to hold any form of small talk with people due to lack of social cues like the image mentions and some other stuff.
TIL I am autism
I rarely use people's names.
I use them all the time on purpose. People like to hear their own names. It quickly recognizes them as an associate of yours and makes them feel special.
That's why I don't like it. I feel being manipulated if someone says my name all the time.
Well, around other NDs I skip the pleasantries and get down to business.
Kinda why I thought I might be a sociopath. I don't ask things like that because I genuinely do not care.
In my experience most neurotypicals don't as well and it's just some kind of ritual. Most of the time I just try to copy what the other person is doing to not be awkward and get on with it.
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Jokes on you - my autistic stepson will continually repeat "how are you? - [and then] ...not bad, how are you?"
People aren't waiting for the answer so I doubt they even notice that you didn't ask
The answer is not the point. The question is what people expect. It is a gesture of friendly respect.
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The solid three minutes after someone asks me how I'm doing before I remember to ask it back, just about every time 😬
That's me. I do genuinely care, and want to have a conversation, but somewhere i missed that bit of programming and have to go back after the fact.
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Part of my mask is almost always asking people how they are feeling for the day when I first start my interaction with them. I used to avoid that kind of small talk, but it actually super helps me make adjustments to my conversations with them and gives me context to why they might speak to me a certain way. When I'm in a burn out phase, I tend to avoid it though because I don't really have the mental energy to process their responses and want to disconnect as quickly as possible.
I engage with them no matter what. My reasons being: if I can handle it, I get a gauge on what mood they’re in and how to talk to them that day, which makes things easier for me since I don’t have to guess. If I can’t handle caring about their response, at least it gets them talking and I don’t have to offer up anything about my life. Just keep steering the conversation back to theirs and they basically handle all the heavy lifting until I can find an out.
Obviously this does not work perfectly all the time but it usually gets me to the finish line.
I think a month or two ago I'd have said the same thing, but I've recently hit the worst burnout I've ever experienced... There's been days where I can only get a few words out before my brain just shuts down. Absolutely night and day difference from where I was...sooo now I'm in ultra recovery mode and really focusing on building my battery back up 😓
Oooofff I am sorry. Hopefully you can recharge and you have some reliable ways to extract yourself from dealing with the energy vampires.
It’s wild how fast your defences can fail once you get to a certain point.
I'm the same. Don't really care for small talk
You might not but it's extremely important. The idea behind small talk is to check if everyone is on the same page. When you're doing small talk you're communicating that you're an ok person and that you're ok with the other person. By skipping or avoiding small talk you're basically fucking with the vibe in the room. Imagine everyone is humming the same song and getting along and you bust down the door and start death growling about the meaning of life and your pokemon card collection while guitars shriek in the background, that's what skipping small talk is.
I do it when necessary, I can read a room, just don't care for talking about the weather in an elevator.
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not autistic, but yeah thats me
I'm starting to think these quirky relatable characteristics don't in fact constitute autism 🤔
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Same. It’s hard to remember because I assume people ask me because they care about the answer instead of it just being a social ritual. For the same reason I don’t ask it back because I genuinely don’t care.
Somehow it's the exact opposite for me. I assume people are just asking for the social ritual while I actually care about the answer, but it somehow feels selfish in my mind to expect them to give a genuine answer when I hate doing that myself. So I don't ask. Because obviously, that's how you get people to not dislike you, right? By not making them do things they don't want to do.
Notice my daily post is "Hey What's Going On!" And not "How are you?"
I'm starting to do it more recently, and almost always it feels awkward because I'm mostly doing it because it what I should do, for the reason of... it is what is done.
I don't know if im autistic but I have never been exactly mainstream. I think my neighbors like me well enough but I also think im strange to them. Some I take some sort of personal slight from me but honestly those folks are like ones its just as well if they avoid me. One thing that is wierd is the tribalism thing. Like people expect if you agree with them on one thing you will on all things. So some people are like mad at you at times but then fine with you based on your lasst conversation. I have no idea when people started expected everyone to agree with them all the time.
I don't have a problem with it, but the normies sure do seem like they do.
Someone said that those Floskeln are there to feel out if you are dangerous.
As soon as I thought of all that stuff more like signals that you won't attack and your intentions aren't malicious, it made more sense.
I think it's especially important to ask them back if they didn't actually mean it in the first place.
Normies are weird, you just have to learn some arbitrary rules to coexist with them. It might feel fake, but it's genuine to them.
I sometimes forget and then randomly ask how a person is doing to not seem like an asshole. I usually don't care for small talk, but want to make sure people know that I care.
I sometimes find when you do this, ask how someone's doing outside of the initial small talk bit, they seem to find it more genuine and will open up anout how they're actually doing. When I'm working and someone greets me with :how are you" or "how's it going" I'll usually answer something ridiculous like wonderful! And not ask them back. If we're still working chose by, a bit later I'll ask how they're doing.
"I am functioning within normal parameters."
You don't have to reply back with the person's name, unless it's unclear who you're addressing, which should be abundantly clear in an interaction like:
"Hey Devin!" "Hey, what's up."
Adding the "what's up" is important though, or something to the same effect ("how are you", ...), because it helps support the conversation and keep it flowing.
Just mirroring the "Hey" can feel terse and unwelcoming, like you're not interested in talking because you're not providing the other person a "conversational path" they can follow up on.
As the conversation continues, usually both parts will be providing "paths" that the other can choose to take, according to their interests.
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I'm quite sociable but also very quiet. I'm thinking being polite of not disturbing or interrupting people. However, at some point I start to wonder why nobody is talking to me. Well, duh, I should ask or talk to people, but this never crosses my mind or just flys past me.
These days I'm old and wise. I'll remember asking about the other person right after the conversation ended, not a week after.
Wait what!?!!?
Though yeah, i kinda totally forget that I'm supposed to randomly ask about small things as well from other people, not just exchange of information.
Kinda like forgetting to show interest in the other person, well technically there is a grain of truth there as i generally do lack that interest and doing it manually is prone to forgetting it.
Though it's kinda understandable, autism does effect the social and emotional side of me the strongest.
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