Do you actually care about your friend's new baby, vacation abroad or similar life events or are you just being nice?
Do you actually care about your friend's new baby, vacation abroad or similar life events or are you just being nice?
Because I don’t, and pretending to feels dishonest. I’ll listen if they want to talk about it, but I’m not going to act interested, and I certainly won’t ask about it on my own. What I’m trying to figure out is whether people actually care, or if they’re just playing a social game that I’m simply not interested in.
I’m probably on the autistic spectrum, which likely explains this to some extent. But that’s not an excuse - being an asshole is perfectly compatible with autism, so before dunking on me, please realise I probably agree with your criticism.
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I am on the spectrum. And no, i don't. And I don't think of it as being an asshole, I simply don't care about it because it just is something unimportant. I mean, if something bad happened to them, I'll be the first one to ask, but if they are telling me how nice was their trip it's like... well, yeah? It's expected. You make a trip to have a good time, so of course you had a good time.
I guess i consider it innecessary because is the expected outcome.
With that said, I will listen to what they say and remember it, but that doesn't mean I find it interesting unless there is something remarkable about it.
Do you think everyone you talk to enjoys every aspect of the things you have to talk about? Do you appreciate that they listen?
Honestly, I am not very talkative. I am bad at small talk so I rarely speak unless asked directly about something specific.
Because of this, I believe that if someone asks me about something, it's because they are interested in what I have to say about it.
To answer your question, I will not go to tell someone about my last trip unless they ask me about it because I consider that it's not that interesting to the others if (like I do) they are not asking about it.
It doesn't necessarily have to be about a trip you took. It could be about anything, even something you feel you were specifically asked about. Do you think the people who ask you about those things really care about the things you care about the same way you do and so they want to hear everything you have to say? Maybe they do, but it's really very rare for people to care about things the exact way anybody else does.
Just because somebody asked doesn't mean they care about the thing. A significant majority of the time people ask, and then actually listen, it's because they care about you, not any particular thing. And those people probably like to be heard just as much.
Small talk is a skill that you must work on to get better at, which then makes it easier for you to be more talkative about your own passions. I used to be a quiet person who didn't like talking, especially small talk, but as I got older I realized life is way too short to hold myself back on forming connections, however minute they may be, and to share passions or experiences with others that may give me some ideas to further get the most of my own life simply by hearing how much fun or how cool this certain thing was. You can enrich yourself by others experiences.