As an American with autism, I see it too.

Small talk is all lies. Almost all praise is fake. And it all drives me insane. I can fit in at work just fine, I can appear joyful and excited to come to work, I have 30 years of practice with it. But I avoid it whenever possible because it is all lies.

Americans appear to oversell everything because people get mad if you don’t.

“Why can’t you just be positive?!”

Because I’m not going to lie. I can’t fake praise, and I won’t even try. Being positive while lying is immediately obvious and it undermines the positive attitude that you’ve painted on. If anything, I take a negative message when I see someone faking a positive manner of speech.

So I'm not personally on the spectrum, but I definitely get the frustration with "this is so fake; why are we all pretending it's not?" experiences.

But "almost all praise is fake" and "small talk is all lies" feels like a pretty depressing place to end up?

Why do you feel like that's the case? How do you differentiate sincere praise from "fake" praise?

Move to Europe, friend - a weight will be lifted.