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==
I used to try (I can't always talk) and reply honestly and that made people treat me weirdly and try to take advantage.
I then tried making appropriate things up and that kinda worked but some people got angry and ended up calling me a liar and assumed a whole bunch of awful stuff on top of that, so ultimately it ended badly.
Now I just avoid people and conversation as much as I can and give vague, noncommittal and brief answers if anyone tries talking to me.
This works in the short term but anything longer than a few minutes has people assuming negative things about me, which if I have to interact with them again over time, means they can get emotional (angry) over the things they've assumed about me.
Life is so much nicer without involving other people.