Trick Communication

Though not quite as annoying as the trick date (or as amazing as the trick I left my journal in your car) there seems to be a trend among some people to try and trick you into asking questions. This is something along the line of fishing for compliments by deprecating yourself, these people really want to talk about themselves or their day, but in order to be more “polite,” they instead ask about you and yours, hoping the standard social contract will inevitably lead to reciprocal questions about them. Ugh.

Those of you who know me have either heard or could probably guess that I am not one for small talk. Society has taught us to be polite to others, and I suppose the church has taught us the same, so we ask inane questions about peoples day or whatever when we couldn’t care less about the answer. If you’ve been keeping up, you’ll know that I have long since given up on doing things others might expect of me, for it has never really brought me happiness thus far, and as such I just don’t care to play the politeness game with people I don’t care about. When you add that to the fact that there are many in our ward that seem generally incapable of interpreting social cues properly, being “nice” to someone can quickly go awry and be mistaken for romantical interest. So I’ve made a choice that I feel is pretty simple; I only ask questions I actually care about the answers to, and I don’t think it’s too much to ask for other to do the same.

That being said, I’m perfectly happy to converse with just about anyone (we’re talking a real conversation here, not just an exchange of pleasantries), just don’t weight the conversation down with mindless small talk. Had a great day? Just come out and tell me about it; don’t turn it into some game where you feel like you have to ask about my day and wait for me to ask about yours. Real life example: someone comes home after a day on the mountain, gear in tow. Clearly they want to talk about the awesome day they had in the snow. First words out of their mouth? “Hey, how was your day?” I could just about see the words jumping out of their mouth to tell me what a great time they had, but that’s not how it went. When stuff like that does end up happening, I usually just get resentful of the whole situation and at the point regardless of whether or not I actually care how your day was, you will almost certainly get a one word answer out of me, likely to be followed by quick exit. If you really feel a need to share a story, just get on with it already. And afterwards, if you really do care about my day, follow up your story with a question about mine. That way no one feels baited into asking about yours.

I guess some of this could be construed as a good news/bad news situation. I doubt you will ever find me asking Karl how his day went, because I would be hard pressed to care less; but if you find yourself to be one of the people I care enough about to ask how your day went, then consider yourself lucky, for on the whole they are few and far between.