Related: I'm often shocked that people don't use common sense to handle situations where they don't have complete and explicit knowledge. It seems that some folks don't have the confidence to try muddling through in unfamiliar situations.
I tend to agree, and I've had the same experiences [1]. Still, isn't this exactly how I look to neurotypicals in terms of social knowledge? Couldn't they just as well say, "You don't know how to do small talk? Gee, just try different things until it works!"?
[1] On the first day of Kindergarten, I ruined the lesson plan by being able to decipher "Welcome to Kindergarten" written in cursive on the blackboard, since (as my mom explained later) the lesson plan depended on the whole class not knowing what it meant, and "Kindergarteners don't know cursive". I didn't, of course, but I knew enough heuristics to guess it's probable meaning.
"You don't know how to do small talk? Gee, just try different things until it works!"?
This could only possibly work if the person you're talking to is an NPC, I should think. A real person may, e.g., stop talking to you if insulted, or grow bored with your attempts.
There's been a recent heavily upvoted and profusely commented post about things people want to learn. It's close to having so many comments in a single day that it should probably have a part 2.
However, the subject seems to inspire thoughts about what *other* people ought to know, and while that's got a good bit of overlap, it's emotionally rather different.
So, what do you think other people ought to know? Any theories about why they haven't learned it already? Any experience with getting someone else to learn something when it started out as your project rather than theirs, especially if the other person was an adult?