Dang, there are some good responses while I was at work today. I'm impressed!

I guess my thing with small talk, is that I tend to view small talk as anything that's not 'objective' based. For example. Talking business, setting up a raid night, or dealing with FC management isn't small talk, because communication is just a means to an end. It's an important part of the process.

So to me, small talk is basically any form of talk that's not relevant to doing something. Talking about the weather. Talking about kids. Talking about someone's personal life. Talking about someone's health issues could easily just be small talk. It's just talk to fill the time. Unless you're talking personal problems trying to find a solution to a problem--then it's like business talk! I guess that's confusing, lol.

So my next question is. For those who dislike small talk. Do you bring it up when someone tries to have small talk? Do you mention that you don't get it or understand it? Do you try to explain your position, or do you just tend to ignore someone or blow off the conversation with as few words as possible? I think that's kind of something that would feel like 'lying to me' in a way? If someone wanted to be social. And I reach out, and they don't like small talk, but they don't tell me. But blow me off or act very dismissive. And when asked why they're dimissive--they're elusive. I feel like that's deception. And I don't like it. I like it when people are honest. I can help overcome obstacles if I know what the obstacles are.

Small talk is often used to just get a feeling of the situation. But if one person is being deceptive--it can make reading the situation a billion times harder. Which is why I tend to be incredibly adamant about the importance of honesty. I mentioned my ex with schizoprhenia a few times in this post (and another). And one of her biggest issues was that she has 'southern pride' which meant she'd often be deceptive in showing her concerns, because she was embarrassed. And while it can sometimes be possible to 'guess' when someone has anxiety and/or embarassed, or other social difficulties--I think it's incredibly unfair to rely on the other person to make those assumptions when forcing someone to make assumptions is like leading them to a minefield. Sometimes you get it right, but way too often it ends up making things worse. Which is why I get that some people distance themselves from those kinds of situations.

So I want to learn how to breach the gap with some of these people, so that they don't feel so isolated. But I struggle in the 'how.'