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 I’ll tell them how I’m doing and then find a way to start talking about my current obsession. They might be interested in it for a few minutes, but I’ll talk about it for 30+ minutes. In the meantime, they’re getting upset because it’s supposed to be a conversation, not a monologue. At some point they either pretend I’m done and walk away or they forceably change the conversation because I’ve had to pause to take a breath. Now I’m annoyed because I didn’t get to finish what I was saying and they’re mindlessly prattling on about how the sky is blue and gee, did you hear about how Bill ate a 5lbs steak!?
No, no I did not hear about how Bill ate a 5lbs steak because I don’t care about what Bill eats. Bill is an adult and he can eat whatever the fuck he wants to eat, I’m not his parental unit. Call me when Bill discovers a new star or comes up with a unified theory of everything. Then I’ll be interested in what Bill’s up to. If I thought that the other person would say something I’d find kinda interesting (it doesn’t have to be something related to my current obsession), or would at least let me finish my thoughts, then I’d be more than happy to engage with them.