"Everyone does that. It's not an autistic trait. Stop making everything about autism."

I feel like I need to make something very clear because I've seen this comment a lot lately. 

Behaviors aren't autistic traits. They are MANIFESTATIONS of autistic traits. 

Saying that everyone hates small talk so it's not an autistic trait is missing the point. (It's also not true. Not everyone hates small talk. "But anyone CAN hate small talk. It's not specific to autism." Okay, sure. That's still missing the point.)

Autism has certain defined criteria, one of which is lack of social-emotional reciprocity in conversation. (This is actually the first of the autism criteria listed in the DSM under the category of social communication challenges.)

There are countless ways lack of social-emotional reciprocity in conversation can show up. One very specific way is if an autistic person is stuck in a small talk conversation and they simply don't engage with the other person.

See... it's not that hating small talk is an autistic trait... it's that it's ONE WAY OF MANY that lack of social-emotional reciprocity in conversation shows up for SOME autistic people. (Not every autistic person hates small talk either, btw)

And this is only one very specific example of how behaviors are MANIFESTATIONS of traits, not traits themselves... but there are countless examples I can give across the different traits of autism.

So please stop saying this and instead realize that just because "everyone does" something doesn't mean that when an autistic person does it, it's not BECAUSE of their autism.