I'm not that good at small talk, I find it tiring and often don't know what to talk about, and so just lapse into silence, listen, watch, etc. If it's something I'm interested in, I can talk about/around it, or if I have nothing to say, can listen to someone burble on, and ask a question or two, or add something here or there (often surprising people, in the process, it seems). I'm learning to ask questions. I'm always much more comfortable with one or two other people, or in small groups rather than large ones, and definitely preferably people I know. I don't know about any men/women difference. But I am willing to let conversations pause.

Some people find this disconcerting, or think I'm boring, or (more likely) stupid. *shrugs*. It's lonely sometimes, but places like this are very good, and I think I've learned a great deal. Thanks.

[flerdle] I'm exactly the same, and I quite agree.

The "other one" out of the disorders that manifest themselves in compulsive menky collecting types of behaviour is Asperger Syndrome, believed in recent years to be a sort of autism-lite. It basically is intended to be an umbrella label for those with somewhat impaired social skills, a preoccupation with abstract hobbies on which they "perseverate" (e.g. focus on to the exclusion of all else for long periods of time, including when talking to someone else) and who find it difficult to empathise or instinctively understand other people's motivations. For a time I believed I was aspergic until I actually went out and met some people who really were and had the chance to compare. This was a painful exercise which involved listening politely to the full details of the history of South West trains. After years of neglect it has become an extremely fashionable diagnosis recently for children, and, it seems to me, is overapplied.

[Smalltalk] I'm exceptionally bad at smalltalk, and also don't respond well to it. I'm not one of these people who generally can talk to, say, a hairdresser, probably because I feel like I have no common reference points. That said, where I fall down is not being very good at the verbal parrying that establishes what the common reference points are. This is made worse by being a hopeless bloke, having no interested in cars, football and, to a certain extent, tits. So even the usual gambits just fail on me miserably. This probably marks me out as being 'boring', and would probably be confirmed if my interlocutors were to discover those subjects I do have an opinion about. New people can be problematic, too. I don't know if flerdle or penelope remember what I was like when I turned up at my first pilg...

[Aspergers] I have a friend who is like this, and his mum suggested he might have Aspergers. However a friendly medic who had met him immediately said "No, he's not got Aspergers"... I think there is a fashion to give everything a fancy label nowadays, and like Projoy, believe this is not a good thing. I would have thought it were obvious that different people approach things differently, and there's degrees of conformance to the "standard" way of doing things (known popularly as "normality").

In fact, drawing these two stands together, I find most "normal" people rather dull. Is this just me being an arrogant arse-wit?

[Aside] Am currently "working" at home, and the phone rang whilst composing the above. The caller hung up immediately. I hate that - why can't they just admit to having dialled a wrong number? I don't think it was a potential burglar...