It’s about ‘small
talk’ – you know, that seemingly idle chit-chat that NTs do so much of, the “hi, how are you, how’s your Bert’s lumbago,
did you see that program on TV last nite, what do you think of that latest movie,
I went to that fancy new restaurant, how did your trip go, we’ve been so busy
lately,” kind of talk; on and on it goes, a seeming drivel of nothing much,
simply filling the airwaves. Which we on the spectrum find either irritating,
boring, or simply confusing and overwhelming. Because it seems so… meaningless,
pointless, droning, superficial, and just plain stupid.
Well it
isn’t meaningless, I’ve realised. Interwoven with a ton of non-verbal signals, ‘small
talk’ sends a host of implicit ‘messages’, creating a two-way (or three-way, or
more) flow of unspoken communications. At the very least, this unspoken
communication says something like I see
you, I acknowledge your presence. The better the participants know and/or
like each other, the stronger their connections, the more of these ‘messages’
are sent - I respect you, I like you, I
want to spend time with you, I find you interesting enough to care about your
Bert’s lumbago or your trip, I’m willing to kowtow to your authority, and
no doubt other transmissions I haven’t yet decoded. This is why ‘small talk’
gets called the ‘glue’ that binds people together socially. (There are of
course often lots of negative messages sent too. These however are also, in
their own way, part of the ‘glue’, as they let people know where they stand.)
Now of
course, as our ability to read that non-verbal stuff ranges from poor to
non-existent, we miss just about all of that, and hence can only hear the ‘top
layer’ of the communications, which – on its own - seems, well, shallow and
pointless. (I’m slightly embarrassed to admit it’s taken me till my fifties to
realise all this, but hey, better late than never.)
If you
doubt me, take the opportunity some day to watch any two NTs talking together.
Ignore the actual words and simply observe their bodies. It’s like watching a
dance. They will sway towards each other, then lean back. Gesture with their
hands or arms, cock their heads to one side, perhaps shrug or twitch a
shoulder, fidget in their chairs, shuffle their feet or cross their legs, tap
their fingers on a surface or reach out and touch the other. If standing, they
might move from one foot to the other, or turn away slightly and then back
again. And then there’s things like tone of voice, and pitch, and facial expressions,
all of which have meaning – to them.
The words they use are simply a framework to hang all this on, a sort of
vehicle to carry all the real
messages. And NTs never think to tell us this, because not only are they
usually unaware we don’t ‘see’ all that, but it functions mostly at the
subconscious level anyway, so they’re only half-aware of it themselves.
Now I am not saying we need to learn how
to do all that stuff, or try to decipher those unspoken messages. As I’ve said
before, beyond basic politeness, I don’t feel it’s productive for us to waste a
lot of time and energy on something we’re only ever going to be (at best)
second-rate at anyway. If, however, we accept
that it’s there, even if we can’t see it, understand it, or decipher it, I
believe that it will eliminate or at least alleviate our distress and frustration
(though perhaps not our boredom!) with the whole business. And I am all for
anything that makes our already-difficult lives even a little easier.
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