You Suck at Conversation

Look, I’m not going to lie to any of you and throw up some facade like I’m amazing at everything. That’s right, even I have things I don’t particularly excel at. One of those things happens to be small talk.

Now, I could launch into rant a few thousand words long about how utterly useless and worthless small talk really is in the grand scheme of things. It doesn’t help you get to know someone all that well beyond superficial bullshit. It certainly doesn’t fulfill any void you have in your life. If anything, it’s merely nothing more than a time filler when spending time with people you truly don’t care much about. Like I said, I could detail this out for you, but I’m going to assume that my highly intelligent and socially retarded readers (both of you that are still left) know this already. So with that out of the way, let’s move on.

My inability to create small talk with virtually anyone is somewhat relevant to what I’m actually going to write about: the worst things to ask when attempting to have a conversation with someone. These particularly apply to someone you talk to on a consistent basis, since not only do they make you look desperate for some level of communication, but it also gives the semblance of inability to think of anything of actual substance to discuss. Also, they really annoy the fuck out of me. A lot.

I’ll quit with the jibber-jabber and get right to the list of Things You Should Never Ask Someone Unless You’re Intentionally Trying to Irritate Them.

Question #1: What are you doing? – I think this one almost speaks for itself, but let me elaborate anyway. Typically if you’re asking this question, odds are the conversation is either taking place online or over the phone, since no one would ask “What are you doing?” to someone standing right in front of them, unless it was natural curiosity due to being unfamiliar with whatever is going on (which is one of the very few instances that makes asking this question socially acceptable). As for the other two situations, well, no. Asking it over the phone is utterly pointless unless you’re being ignored for some particular reason, because the obvious answer is “talking to you”. Anything else you can usually deduce from background noise (TV, typing on the computer, eating, etc.). And if you can’t deduce it, then too bad, because it really doesn’t matter. And if you ask it while talking to someone online… well, what kind of answer do you truly expect? They’re stuck in their computer chair, sitting at their computer, and they’re having a conversation with you. What more could they possibly be doing? And even if they are doing something else at the time, how interesting could it possibly be? Paying bills, looking at websites, watching TV, talking to other people… none of this invokes further discussion or legitimate interest from the person asking the question. Unless they’re crazy and obsessed with your every action. And if this is the case, then you have even more reason to avoid the person asking. (Take note of this girls, especially you crazy jealous types, because guys will avoid prolonged conversations with you if you’re going to keep tabs on them even while they’re actually talking to you. Just. Stop.)

Bottom Line: If someone is talking to you on the phone or computer, odds are really good that they’re not doing anything interesting at all, so stop fucking asking already.

Question #2: What did you eat? – I ate my arm. Seriously. This is one of the questions that tends to irritate me the most since it not only doesn’t even feed into the crazy obsessive person’s mindset (because really what you ate doesn’t affect them in any way, unless your answer was “eating at the Y over at (insert girl’s name here)“). It’s just a mundane, terrible question, that screams “I have nothing interesting to say, so I’m going to inquire regarding the most uninteresting thing you could’ve possibly done in the past couple of hours.” The only exception here is if you were out at some important banquet or new restaurant and they were naturally curious as to what was served or how the food was. But even then, the question is still quite terrible.

Bottom Line: If you’re about to ask someone this question, just don’t.

Question #3: What are you thinking about?/What’s on your mind? – I’ll just get the exception(s) out of the way on this one right away: If you just wrapped up a serious conversation and are wondering how the other person feels about what was just said, or someone is obviously distressed over something and isn’t coming right out and saying what it is. That’s. It.

Any other time this question is asked, it’s again to point out “I have nothing of interest to say or any real topics of conversation”, but also adds a “I’m going to attempt to be deep and inquisitory by attempting to probe your thoughts”. It’s the go-to question for some pseudo-intellectual failure when they’re trying to show that their mind is capable of much higher level of thinking, feeling, and understanding that it truly is. Also remember that bit about crazy obsessive girls from before? Yeah, they love this question too. It’s almost like a set up, because they need you to be thinking about them and only them, otherwise they could be losing you and fall out of love with them and then go cheat on them with some other girl or dream about some other girl while having sex with this girl or whatever other ridiculous shit goes on in the head of a crazy girl. (I was going to have a woman fill this portion out for me with exactly how the female mind processes this, but that would’ve required way too much effort and I feel that not only am I close enough with what I already wrote, but the actual truth straight from the horse’s mouth might induce unrepairable damage to people unaware that crazy girls actually think this way.)

Instead of asking this, why not just tell me what’s on your mind and perhaps the natural flow of conversation will move to what’s on my mind? Unless you’re completely devoid of thought (and many people are), this would be a much easier (and much less irritating) method to go about it if you really want to delve into another person’s psyche. Also, you can understand much more about a person based on their reactions to the things you say and the context in which they respond than flat out asking blunt questions like that and getting some terrible response. And if you must know if they’re thinking about you, odds are very good they are in some capacity since they are having a conversation with you, but to gauge the amount that they’re thinking about you is borderline insanity. Which is fitting, since girls are insane.

Bottom Line: Asking me what’s on my mind makes you look desperate for “deep” conversation, and that you’re incapable of generating real conversation any other way.

Question #4: What did you do at work today? – This is one of those questions that simply should never be asked, unless you work with the person and you need the details of what was accomplished for when you go to do your work. But since this is rarely the case, the person asking the question likely has no clue as to your job activities, duties, and other responsibilities, absolutely nothing of substance could be said in response. I could tell someone what I did today, but since most of it ends up with business jargon thrown in (plus the additional fun of most people not even knowing what the hell my position does, let alone it’s mere existence in the first place), they’re not going to get anything out of it except more questions to ask and ultimately giving up.

So let’s say I do actually detail what I did at work that day (yes, I do actual work at times… my entire day is not spent only talking to people on AIM, going online, and posting blogs). What do they get out of it? Nothing. None of what I said means a damn thing to them, it’s just more filler conversation due to the absence of actual conversation. I don’t bring up the details of my job in typical conversation on purpose; I don’t expect most people to really understand what I do or my particular job function beyond “I try to save the company money”. In fact, it takes quite a while just to describe my job in the first place, before even bothering to describe anything I’m working on (which also includes a bunch of explanation as to what the project truly entails before getting into the details). So unless you’re intimately familiar with what I do for some odd reason (which is highly unlikely for me since so few people hold a position like mine), stop asking what I did at work.

Bottom Line: You don’t want to hear what I did at work, and I don’t want to explain it. It’s just as boring for me to talk about as it would be for you to listen to.

These are merely the most common questions I’ve been asked over the years that irritate the hell out of me. I’m sure there are more. In fact, I know there are more. But none are as obvious as these. I could get into mundane stuff such as “how was your day?” and “how was work?”, but really, those serve the purpose of showing that you remotely care about how someone’s life is going.

I’m not sure if this is ironic or simply just someone trying to torture me, but as I was about to Publish this post, I got asked “So how is your project at work going?” by someone on AIM. I think Jesus hates me. Bastard.

~ by whittydiatribes on May 7, 2009.