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