No More Chit Chat! - Part I

No More Chit Chat!

"So, how you been,"
"Fine, and you?"
"Fine." In actuallity I may be dying of a fatal and highly contagious disease, but I know you really could care less.

"So, what do you do?"
"Oh, I work at Blemish Pharmaceuticals"

Meet an acquaintance while walking outside on the sidewalk. The person says "So, hot enough for you?"

Inane passerby chat (typically made in light conversation when you meet some one in the hall or on the street)

So, what if the weather isn’t hot enough for me? Can anyone really do anything about the weather? I know an Aspie that will say the word “cows” when he walks up to me. Asking me if I am satisfied with the weather is just about as meaningful. Sayoing "cows" is just unexpected. It’s expected to come up and say something inane about the weather so typical people aren’t surprised or confused by it. They would be surprised or confused if I just said “glomph” when I met some one.

“Hey, let’s do lunch.”
When I lived in the Chicago area and I ran into a work acquaintance or had a business meeting at a bar or restaurant, people would always say, “Let’s do lunch sometime”.

It really just meant “Positive feelings to you. End of personal contact.” Typical people and even a lot of Aspies would be surprised and confused if I said, "End of personal contact."at the end of a personal contact. It would be more precise, but socially, incongruis.

Typical people want a way to close a personal contact so they say thing like, “See you later” or “Call me sometime.” Or “Don’t be a stranger.” It gives typical people a comfortable sense that the personal contact was concluded in a positive way.

For a while, I had this growing list of people that I thought wanted to have lunch with me. I felt kind of bad that I hadn’t gotten around to calling them, and was worried how I could afford going out to lunch that much. I don’t know if anyone of those people really wanted to do lunch. That bugged me, once I figured that one out.

I remember once I called a former coworker and said, “Let’s do lunch.” I meant what I said, but the former coworker was a neuro-typical. She never showed up at the restaurant. “Let’s do lunch,” doesn’t mean let’s do lunch so she didn’t.

Neurotypicals are soo goofy.

More later.

Adam Parmenter