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.

since in most other languages people don't ask "how are you" would this problem exist in other languages?

Reading these kind of things always makes me think to see a doctor.. that has been way too hard for way too long.. too late anyway I guess..

Now I see these interactions as functions: it's not inviduals acting in those cases, just society going on. I stopped thinking about the person asking and now I see them like a traffic light going red and green: not a problem.

Am I still weird? Yes. Is that my problem? No.

I’m not neurodivergent, but small talk is fundamentally a conversation with no other purpose than to maintain, build and express social relationships. There’s no substantive information being passed. So I guess it is a concentrated dose of some people’s worst nightmare

@[email protected] The phrase "can't complain" referring to the fact that if I did, there would be consequences. I try to assume that if someone wants to know, they'll ask again when they hear a nonanswer, giving me more time to do the math.