90 Minutes of Dealing with Small Talks Costs me 48 Hours of Recovery Time (Autism Friendships Cost)
I wanted to visit my friends to go walking in the park and hang out at their house—watch a movie or something. I wanted to see them in person, not just chat online. But I avoid their requests most of the time to hang out entirely or postpone them weeks or months in advance.
I’m not avoiding them because I don’t care. Nor out of malice. I’m avoiding the small-talk part because it wipes me out so fast.
A constant and lingering drain that involves immense cognitive resources on my end which leaves barely any in return to do anything else once the hangout is over.
The Small Talk Tax
Usually a few minutes of small talk gets me to the actual conversation. It's still really exhausting, but being able to talk about something we both clearly have in common—or my special interests like programming, digital art, animation—makes conversation a lot more manageable for me.
But those first few minutes feel like my fuse is burning way too quickly. Even with friends and relatives I've known for years.
The masking involved—monitoring my facial expressions, forcing eye contact, laughing at the right moments—burns through my energy before we even get to actual conversation.
My motivation fades fast because the executive function demand is constant—thinking about what they'll say, how they'll react, what I should say next.
The unpredictability especially drains me fast. That drains most of my energy, making it even harder to continue talking. Using my app 1-10 slider context in mind: A 90-minute hangout leaves me at 2 energy that night and barely 4 energy the next day— leaving 48 hours where I can't even respond to texts. I'll just continue to scroll right by them and not reply back until several days later.
After a hangout, if it involves a bunch of small talk on unfamiliar questions or ones that drag out for multiple minutes, I'll be at around 2 energy by the time the day is over But if most of the day simply involves us hanging out and not much conversation takes place, I'm at around 4 or 5 energy—giving me energy to draw or play some games on my computer before bed.
Why I Stay Home Most of The Time
There are meetups a few miles from where I live. They occur very often. I see them on my phone all the time.
Despite really wanting to go and take part of them (Some of which even including friends I already know), the exhaustion is way too much to handle most of the time.
I strongly prefer either chatting with a very small group of people in one setting for a few hours with plenty of breaks in between, or strictly online where I don't have to perform as much when meeting new people for the first time—even friends I already know.
So I stay home and chat through text most of the time. I can take my time messaging them. Timing isn't strict and most of my friends are okay with this. But in-person conversation and small talk is still immensely draining. Not all friends take it lightly and even are slightly put-off by this, leaving the friends that I often make compared to the ones that stick around long term highly leaning towards the latter.
Since Work already drains me to the edge of what I can handle, adding social depletion on top of work depletion would push me to complete shutdown for the next few days. Making the idea of socializing as a whole, let alone purely for fun and not work related an absolute nightmare.
I've avoided most of them to ensure I don't get pushed further into autistic burnout, making conversation—even through text—harder. And to not continue the cycle of wanting to be involved -> Too much energy to be involved -> Not being involved -> Still wanting to be involved in conversations to some extent. Rinse and repeat.
I'm Omari, a 23-year-old autistic adult who's been managing chronic burnout for 5+ years while working warehouse shifts.
Texting is how I stay present in majority friendships without collapsing. I'm very put off when friends ask to VC. By tracking my energy, the periods where I may have energy for a very short call on the phone, and I can track where my current baseline is, and limit it to only a couple of minutes at a time, and to leave the rest of the conversation strictly through text. This is one of the many things I built Spoons for, to track the costs that I probably wouldn't have taken seriously and used up all of the reserves I likely need to handle anything else.
Launching April 2026. getspoons.app - One email when it's ready. No spam.
— Omari
Note: I'm sharing my personal experience as an autistic adult, not medical advice. If you're experiencing severe burnout or crisis, please consult a healthcare provider familiar with autism.