People who don't ask any questions

[200thousand]

Aibu - I try to ask questions when I meet people (particularly new people)... just general stuff about their career, life whatever, nothing too prying - I'd hope not to come across as prying. Just making general conversation.

You would expect people to reciprocate, when they don't ask questions back are they being polite (trying not to pry) or is it more likely they are self obsessed? Or just not interested in me (I'm not boring!)

I just think a conversation should go like this...

General chat
Question from person 1
answer from person 2
general chat
question from person 2
answer from person 1
general chat

I know that sounds a bit prescriptive, I don't mean it to, but just think on the whole you should ask someone you are chatting to questions esp if they ask you some.

recent conversations have gone:

general chat
me ask a question
answer from other person
general chat
me ask another question
answer / general chat
general chat
me ask another question
answer / general chat

with no questions!?

AIBU to find it a bit weird??

I would suggest subject is everything and my family and childhood are particularly annoying things for people to pry into

Those are odd topics to bring up and not very polite.

The usual things I ask when being polite and meeting someone new is always things like -

Where are you from?

Where do you live?

Do you have any children? (If at a child based event)

Where do you work? (Reserved for when I'm fairly certain that person has a job)

What does your husband do?

My hairdresser's favourite thing to ask is:

"Going away anywhere nice this year?"

Of course I wouldn’t riding but gins point did seem to be more about the general, about how our children ‘should’ make small talk.

Very often, people give out signals that they aren’t uncomfortable. They don’t make eye contact, The may fidget, pause, make ‘filling’ noises and words (sigh, twitch, say things like hey-ho, ooh, gosh.)

Say I ask someone something like ‘do you have family living nearby?’
‘Gosh, erm, ooh, well, not exactly.’ Pause. Twitch.
Written down it seems obvious the person is uncomfortable with the question but I hazard a guess source 80% of the population either don’t notice or don’t care and blast on regardless.

I think some of the responses are talking about slightly different situations.

Some posters are saying they don’t want to field questions etc. I agree with that- I certainly don’t interrogate strangers! In fact, I’m an introvert and would never start a conversation just to fill silence. I’m very comfortable with silence. I don’t particularly like it when random strangers chat to me at bus stops etc.

However, when I am in a social situation and having a conversation, I would quite like to feel that that it is a two-way dialogue, rather than being regaled with a monologue about an individual’s life.

I'm like this - I always ask people lots of questions. Partly it's because I'm genuinely interested in other people, partly it's because I worry I talk about myself too much so want to make sure they get chance to chat too. But sometimes I realize from their reaction that I'm asking too many questions and coming across as nosy/prying/intrusive. I'm generally very open about myself so I have to make myself remember that some people are a lot more private. I think I must be a bit socially awkward!

I do know what you mean, waterlego. I have a friend I’m fond of but she does talk rather incessantly about herself and it’s been exacerbated since having children!

One of my problems is I am exceptionally boring. I don’t go anywhere, do anything or see anyone. So even ‘going away anywhere nice this year’ is tricky for me. If I say ‘no’ I am rude, even though it’s true, so I have to deflect and I deflect so much it does get a wee bit exhausting.

I think there are plenty of non-personal questions to ask a person you’ve only just met. ‘Where do you live?’ ‘Have you had a busy week/weekend?’ ‘Do you like to travel? Which places have you liked the most?’ ‘What sort of things do you do in your spare time?’

Yes, some of these sound like a GCSE French oral exercise, but they can lead to much broader and more interesting conversations.

Dolphin, I bet you’re more interesting than you think you are!

Sometimes I actually say "sorry if I'm asking too many questions, I'm a bit socially awkward." (I'm aware that actually SAYING that is also socially awkward. I'm being assessed for ASD at the moment).

Ok I do this! And I am then aware of it after the fact and berate myself! And i still do it again.
I just get flustered a lot especially with people I don't know well and it doesn't occur to me. 🙈

French oral exercise

I will have to paraphrase this as obviously I don’t remember exactly but as a teenager somebody gave me a book about equitette. Thank the Lord I didn’t take it seriously. But the advice, if you met a monosyllabic person, was to show an interest in them. If they didn’t give much away, the book suggested, you could look at their person for clues. The example it gave was something like:

You notice they’re carrying a WH Smith’s carrier bag. You could strike up a conversation about the magazines they read, or tell them how much money you spend in Smiths every week, or about what sort of pen they prefer to use!

Geeky, you don't sound socially inept to me, on the contrary, you sound very aware of other people.

To me, ineptness would be trying to excuse your own behaviour by putting the blame on others such as the blistering lack of awareness of; "I can't believe the lack of empathy... no social nous". That is rude.

water one of the strange things about me is that I am actually quite gregarious and friendly with people and able to hold lovely, pleasant, natural conversations, to the point where I’ve actually been dragged into potentially difficult meetings at work to gently smooth things over.

But then I absolutely HATE being asked questions. I think a lot of it is because so many very harmless questions are actually quite upsetting for me, and this is 100% my issue, not other people’s, but often people become quite intrusive when you give a tiny bit away.

I work in a tiny office. One colleague makes it very awkward because she has no social skills. When you work with someone for 8+ hours a day and they refuse all social interaction it becomes very awkward. This is how every conversation goes:

Morning
Me: Morning Jane, how are you?
Jane: Fine

Afternoon
Me: just popping out for lunch, want anything?
Jane: No

Going home time
Me: Have a good evening! Any plans?
Jane: No

It makes working together hard as there is literally just the two of us. Other colleagues have said shes the same with them.

For me, it's because I'm really wary of other people's dramas. Ive had a couple of attempts but the angst, rage and general speed and volume of output leave me exhausted!

See user that isn’t polite but I must admit I’d far prefer to work with your ‘Jane’ than someone who won’t shut up.

I think other people are really interesting and you might get good ideas from them, about children, work, life or anything really, so it's fun and possibly useful to chat to them.

However, I do have friends who only talk about themselves and it's annoying. I tend to see them irregularly.

Growing up, I taught my DC to ask open questions of others to make friends as almost everybody is interested in themselves and likes to talk about themselves to a greater or lesser extent.

Isn't that how the world works? People are flattered by your attention or interest.

Dolphin - that etiquette book sounds hilarious!

Do you know, looking through this thread it's occurred to me that it's slightly odd how much effort goes into acting 'naturally'. To some of us, small talk is easy enough but a lot of people on here are saying how anxiety inducing it is and how forced it is for them. Curious. What does that say about us, as a species?

Sorry, I've gone all David Attenborough

I am on the autistic spectrum and it took me a very long time to understand the role of questions in social interaction. I used to just be a bit bewildered that people were so interested in me and grateful because it gave me something to talk about.

I think I do understand it better now and I have a mental list of questions that I have memorised so I can join in. I do have to remind myself to do it though. It seems like a very odd way to interact to ask someone a question when you generally don’t care about the answer.

If you had met me ten years ago you probably would have thought me very rude.

Somebody genuinely interested in talking to a person will be able to make a quick assessment of how much interaction they're comfortable with and to me, that's the art of conversation.

A verbal Gattling-gun approach just leaves me cold.

@waterlego I would die a slow and painful death if anybody came at me with questions like that! Imagine some poor sod trying to formulate an answer to 'What are your favourite places to visit?' if they aren't widely travelled, wondering if 'Leeds' and 'Nando's' would be an acceptable answer! I watched an episode of The Undateable's recently, and one of the guys on the show had a list of questions on his phone for his date that he got out and fired at her, just like this! 🙈 Fine for the socially awkward, but otherwise, just no!

But of course ‘Nando’s’ is an acceptable answer! Leads to a convo about food!