studying the linguistics of small talk is an extremely autistic thing to be doing lol
being able to tell the difference between small talk and phatics is actually extremely useful for me as an autist lol
every culture had their own set of approved small talk topics.
one cultures small talk is another cultures Big talk is another cultures phatic, it's all fake and we shouldn't feel bad for being tripped up by rules we weren't taught
in nepal their small talk is typically to just say every bad thing that's happened to you, to show how resilient you are, that would be horrifying to hear from a best friend much less a stranger in anglo-saxon american culture lol. these rules are all fake
im gonna start using "whatve you been learning/passionate about lately" to my list of small talk subjects because fuck it if this is all fake then I can make it what I want it to be and I want to hear people's special interests
@NumberOneBug my partner has done this since forever and it is truly the best. usually you get to jumpstart a connection and if somebody struggles to answer you know instantly to either avoid them (bc boring // dead inside) or to take them under your wing and help them realize how awesome they are
@NumberOneBug oooh good idea!