Greentext

Actual autist here: Took me a loooong time to figure out a whole bunch of social concepts when it comes to what neurotypicals basically deem as small talk.

Firstly, you basically just have to accept that for most people, a level of classist, racist, other kinds of stereotypical insults are socially viewed as basically acceptable, even though its usually quite obvious they are, in fact, insults.

Then you have to understand the concept of proportionality in small talk. You have to reply with something that's very obviously and directly relevant, and of the same magnitude.

(Jumping from an insult about dietary preferences to an insult about war crimes is not the same magnitude)

Encapsulating this entire social interaction is the setting: coworkers of mixed nationality likely and an after work dinner likely implies an expectation of basically corporate social etiquette, ie, back handed compliments to establish a social dominance hierarchy, where the name of the game us getting as close to breaching the invisible 'wow what an asshole' line without actually stepping over it.

To avoid looking meek, docile, awkward or antisocial, you have to figure out an appropriate small talk style reply, which actually requires a fairly detailed knowledge of the other persons you are conversing with. Their culture, personal history, personal beliefs, etc.

So ok, if you know a bit about Israelis, you might attempt to insult back along the lines of dietary preferences.

But, its a faux pas to escalate even within this realm of responses: If you retort that you 'prefer your potatoes with pork', well, that's probably going to be viewed as quite rude, as that's still a higher magnitude, as it references something that is commonly known to be forbidden to most Israelis.

What might be a proportional response would be 'Sorry, I'd make them (the potatoes) into latkes for you, but I don't have any eggs'.

But that may still be deemed as overly offensive, depending on the temperament of the Israeli and the level to which the other coworkers feel the need to be defensive toward perceived anti-semitism.

So, as an autistic person, you have to consciously have all this knowledge and think through it all logically in real time, all while your actual emotion is anger because you don't give a fuck that the potato comment was supposed to be a joke, because it was in actuality a racist insult that actually references a fucking famine and a dietary stereotype that exists largely due to imperialist exploitation of your ancestors.

In summary, yeah small talk is an absolute nightmare for autistic people who are in an aggressive, hostile social environment, which, at least in my experience, is almost all of them.