Hi Mark,

I'm happy to share my experiences and my thoughts - that's the best way to learn about something like this.

When I said it never occured to me, that's a regular situation. Rarely do I think of asking such a question when in conversation. Part of me wants to make a list of possible questions to ask and carry it with me, but imagine how that would look in conversation - It would be like I'm interviewing people.

I don't ask a lot of questions in general. Aspies' conversations are typically very topic driven. For example, if you were to ask what I do for a living, I would talk only about that until you or someone else adds something else to the conversation. A new topic means that I will change topics, but I'm often left feeling like I didn't say enough about the first topic (I've learned it's good that I feel that way, because if I didn't, I'd be like may other Aspies and keep talking about the first topic).

If we're talking about the weather, I probably won't be the person who eventually changes the subject to something else. I can, and do sometimes, but not often. So sometimes, the conversation just dies, when the other person has nothing left to say on the subject and I have realized that I've probably talked long enough on the subject (rarely do I ever run out of things to say, however). :-)

If I do find out what a person does for a living, I have the ability to refer to that in conversation. My life is one of constantly searching for connections amongst all the random facts that are in my head. So when I found out that one of the persons I was talking to was a children's librarian (the person sitting next to her asked) I was able to ask her if she liked storytelling and invited her to our church's open mic night to do some storytelling. Now that I know she's a librarian, I will never forget it and will try to connect with that in some way occasionally.

Conversation is a exercize. I talk only about stuff I know, but if I know stuff about my friends, I can use that in conversation to make it appear to be 'average' conversation.

pax