Welcome to the discussion

This article is from Dr Neff's newsletter. It really resonated with me so I'm sharing it here. There are links at the bottom to take you to Dr Neff's site Neurodivergent Insights for more information. Enjoy!

"Certain questions have always been difficult for me to engage with — unfortunately, they tend to be the kinds of questions that serve as entry points for most new relationships and conversations! Things like: "Tell me about yourself," "How's your family doing?" or "How are you?" (when asked genuinely, not as a passing greeting). I now understand these as social-based conversations — the kind that center personhood as the subject of the conversation.

Growing up, this made socializing with other girls difficult. So much of female socializing relies on social-based conversations, often with an added layer of subtle, nuanced communication that requires reading between the lines. It also made therapy sessions hard for me. I’d often freeze up when faced with these kinds of questions, fumbling through answers and feeling utterly incompetent.

As a result, I spent most of my life befriending boys and men. Boys tended to engage in more object-based conversations — talking about things, rather than asking direct, personal questions.* Later, I found comfort in academia, where conversations revolved around ideas, allowing me to connect in a way that felt more natural to me.

Over the years, I developed my own strategies to sidestep these social-based conversations. I learned how to avoid direct questions and steer interactions toward topics that felt safer, but I never quite understood why those strategies worked — or why social-based conversations left me so drained.

That all started to make sense when I watched a training by Dr. Marilyn Monteiro. In her work with Autistic children, she uses an object-focused approach — entering their world by stating facts or descriptions about the child's area of interest, rather than asking direct personal questions.

Hearing her describe this method, I realized it mirrored the way I’ve always felt most comfortable engaging with others. Inspired by her work, I started using the terms "object-based" and "social-based" to describe the ways I experience conversations. When someone meets me through ideas or shared interests, it feels like a door gently opens, giving me the space to reveal myself at my own pace.

This language helped me understand why social-based questions like “How are you?” or “Tell me about yourself” always overwhelmed me with invisible expectations. In contrast, object-based conversations — conversations focused on ideas or objects — feel safer and allow me to connect without feeling exposed.

For example, when my therapist would start a session with “What’s on your mind?” instead of “How are you?” I felt immediate relief. I could dive into the ideas and concepts floating around in my mind, which always felt like a more natural access point to my inner world.

Discussing Levinas' philosophy or exploring psychoanalytic concepts helped me express what was happening inside me far more than being asked a direct personal question.

It’s as if the access point to my inner world comes from a side angle, rather than head-on. Questions that ask for direct social access feel intrusive and confusing, while indirect access — through ideas and objects — gives me the space to gently expand into the conversation with a sense of aliveness.

What Are Social-Based Conversations?

Social-based conversations are about emotional connection and relationship-building, where the focus is on the person. The image that comes to mind is like two people playing catch — looking directly at each other, taking turns tossing the proverbial ball back and forth. When someone asks, “How was your day?” they’re not looking for a list of events. They’re really asking, “How did today feel for you?” or “What was your experience?”

For people like me, these kinds of questions can feel overwhelming. They require me to synthesize a lot of information — and after all, I’m a pretty complex human. So how am I? Well, I’m many things, and it depends on what aspect of my life we’re talking about. These questions don’t give me enough context to filter my response, and I never understood why I froze up in those moments until I learned how my brain processes information differently.

Social-based conversations often require what’s called top-down thinking, where you start with the bigger picture and work your way down.  My brain, on the other hand, works from the bottom up — I start with details and sensory input, then work my way up to a broader understanding. This makes social interactions especially tricky because they require me to jump to the bigger picture first, something that doesn't come naturally to me.

Social-based conversations also rely heavily on social context. It wasn’t until I had a conversation with a colleague — who explained how social context helps her filter out irrelevant information — that I realized there’s a whole layer of these interactions that my brain just doesn’t automatically pick up on!

What Are Object-Based Conversations?

In contrast, object-based conversations focus on a specific topic, idea, or piece of information. These conversations revolve around facts, concepts, or tangible things — like what happened, how something works, or why something occurred.

Here, the subject matter takes center stage — I like to think of these as conversational anchors. We engage with the material itself, analyzing, debating, or exploring it with curiosity. For me, emotions and personhood naturally intertwine with the subject being discussed. The emotional energy isn’t separate or secondary; it’s embedded within the conversation, deeply connected to the topic at hand.

The image that comes to mind when I think of object-based conversations is two people standing side by side, gazing at a sunset. They are both mesmerized by its beauty, discussing what they see and experience, sharing their thoughts about the sunset itself. While the conversation isn’t directly about them, it’s about the experience they’re sharing together, and in doing so, they are sharing a part of themselves.

Understanding this difference has given me a framework to navigate conversations more authentically. It’s helped me feel more at peace with the ways I engage with others and has even deepened the connections I make — because now, I know how to enter conversations in a way that feels grounded and generative.

If small talk or social interactions have ever left you feeling lost or overwhelmed, I hope this framework offers you a new perspective. There’s nothing wrong with needing a different way into connection. It’s absolutely possible to build meaningful relationships without relying on the usual social scripts — we just need to find our own inroads. And that’s okay.

P.S If you're curious and want to explore this idea further, I've shared a visual breakdown (10-slide graphic with text) on social media, and you can read the longer article I wrote about it [here].

*This pattern of mostly socializing with men and struggling with female connections shifted once I found Autistic and queer culture. There I found I could easily connect with women and genderqueer people."