To think of you're going to answer questions with "yeah.." or "no...." At a social event, then fuck offfff

[fanaticalfairy]

Why bother coming out to meet people if you can't even engage in basic conversations with people who are all there to get to know each other?
We were out for a birthday brunch this morning with about 20 people, some we knew, some we didn't as it was for a mutual friend (Graham)
Me .. spying someone unfamiliar at our table..."hi, I'm Fairy, what's your name?
Him: "John "
Me: "great. How you know Graham "
John: " through a friend, Steve"
Me: "oh, yes I know Steve, he's lovely, how do you know Steve?
John" work'
Me: "So, what do you do with Steve?"
John: "Software engineer"
Me: "great what kind of thing? Im a software engineer too..."
John: "Nothing interesting....'
Me: "Oh... Ok. So ... Got any holidays booked?"
John: "No."Tumble weed

"Ok, lovely to meet you ... I'll go and see Graham is okay "

Ugh

Miss Marple. She tried to make polite conversation for perhaps 30 to 45 seconds. I think the private investigator industry doesn’t have too much to worry about.

Sorry you feel this way -however ,
The guy may struggle socially
You don’t know him and he could be going through some personal issues / depression etc

Then why not learn some graceful and polite ways to extricate yourself from attempts at conversation you feel are beneath you? Or do you think the person trying to be polite/inclusive/friendly deserves a snubbing for having the cheek to approach you and ask how you know the host your entire life story?

Yes, OP, did you have an interpretive dance routine available? In case he found your few seconds of attempt at small talk: <consults notes> deathly boring, like Miss Marple, intrusive etc etc

how would that work if everyone was the same as you?
The host can't talk to everyone at the same time.
Say it's a two hour event with twenty guests, does the host spend 6 minutes chatting to each friend, while the other 1hr and 54 minutes everyone else stares silently into the distance waiting for their turn? Great party!

Besides which, if everyone only ever spoke to their friends, and not to anyone they didn't know how would they get to know anyone to make any friends in the first place?

Sometimes I wonder if there's an overlap on MN between the high amount of 'I'm lonely/I don't have any friends/People leave me out at work' threads and posters who say stuff like this, and the other bizarre responses you've received to your post, OP. Saying this as an introvert (which doesn't, despite what people seem to think, equal socially awkward weirdo!)

I feel like a lot of us could do with learning the basic truth that It’s Not Always All About You. Just because you don’t like small talk, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for it in lubricating social situations. Just because you don’t enjoy talking to strangers, it doesn’t mean you should never do it. We all have to do things we don’t enjoy from time to time, and hopefully they get a bit easier with practice.

No @JassyRadlett - remember those few questions asked by the OP are horrific, for goodness sake!

@LikeWhoUsesTypewritersAnyway why do you edit so many of your posts just to add a full stop at the end?

I'm confused as to why a particular poster is so invested and seems to be replying to more ppl than the actual person who's thread it is......

A friend's birthday is not a networking event though! A tip for the extroverts and narcissists: not everyone wants to listen to a stranger's tedious self-centered monologue. Learn to read body language and back off if someone doesn't want to engage with you.

The OP seems to be getting a huge amount of hassle for not considering that the other person was perhaps not neurotypical or has social anxiety. And also being asked to analyse their body language before she speaks to them, consider whether or not they open to these questions, etc. Honestly, as somebody with social anxiety I think we’re making this worse. Now we’re telling people that instead of just asking a couple of basic and reasonable questions that they’re expected to study people’s body language before engaging let alone during a 30 second conversation.

I am way too invested in this. It's because I come from a loud, intrusive, non-British culture where it is perfectly ok to ask women why they have not had children and why!
I am therefore naturally a bit loud and outgoing. i have to take myself down a couple of notches.

Good post

Other people, but not necessarily strangers. Some people have close groups of friends where everyone knows each other.

it’s very rude to go to a social event and decide not to engage with anyone.

Whole novels — OK, at least one very famous novel — have been based on that fact.

To think of you're going to answer questions with "yeah.." or "no...." At a social event, then fuck offfff

Emma Barnett and Rose Hackman have written about precisely this, calling it emotional labour

inews.co.uk/opinion/enough-with-the-emotional-labour-im-going-on-strike-2969594?srsltid=AfmBOooYpmGhStNpMkXseTf1cF4U-Zr1OKNx2OdqGwvQBdrqsRvngC4_

I agree with the OP. Sounds like she was talking to my 13yo DD.

Conversationally lazy people need to make an effort and stop blaming everything on social anxiety and mh. I used to have social anxiety but could still tell the difference between rude and quiet.

Agreed. I’ve been in situations recently where I would’ve preferred to be quiet, like in waiting room for a medical appointment, but made polite conversation because I could tell the person next to me wanted to. Now I think that situation would’ve been one where it would’ve been OK for me to stay quiet, but in general, even though I often shy away from it, human contact is actually important.

Small social interactions for some people can perhaps be the only ones they’re getting. We talk about mental health a lot, but we’re also talking about not interacting with people in case we don’t ask the right questions or we might upset them, I think this is sad. How about if that man at the party had gone along even though he felt anxious that nobody would talk to him. And then maybe nobody did, because they’ve read threads like this. I honestly think that would’ve been worse than a man who had to make 30 seconds of conversation he didn’t want to.

Funny how you are so sensitive to the complex issues potentially affecting him, but when it comes to the OP: 'maybe you are just dull'. Your empathy seems to be very selective.

I should think that just about every conversation with strangers that ever happened, started with questions like these. 'Dull' would be something like if the OP had talked obliviously about herself for half an hour.....not asking a few questions to encourage him to open up then moving on quickly when he made it obvious he didn't want to engage.

By the way I have social anxiety and am on the spectrum. I don't find socialising easy.....but I feel I have to make an effort for everyone's sake if I choose to attend occasions like these. And to be frank, I have been the host for a social event like this where one of the guests just put her head down, looked miserable and refused to engage with anyone. I felt embarrassed for her and wished she hadn't bothered coming.

Interpreting a stranger asking you a few questions about yourself in a pleasant attempt to strike up conversation as a “tedious self centred monologue” from a “narcissist” is bonkers.

I have had it with this term being extended to cover really inconsequential things. Being anything more than a sulky teen is not emotional labour.

You don’t think how receptive he was to the OP is important? It’s a missing part of the conversation - one word answers delivered in one way comes across very differently to another. OP tells John to fuck off in the title
to this post. But it’s very possible that she was the one reading all the social cues wrong.

Sometimes you get a very shy or quiet person just doing their best in a social situation - their body language is going to be very different to someone who is

…being deliberately rude
…going through a difficult personal situation
…trying to indicate a lack of interest in the other person
…trying to hold in a wave of nausea

after the first three monosyllabic questions it would be quite clear to most people that the small talk was either not welcome
or OP was going to have to do all the heavy lifting. To keep just asking questions without either gauging what was going on via body language, or carrying the conversation more with fuller information from her side is just as rude to me.

I agree too. It’s just normal conversation.

If people only want to talk to Graham they should just meet with Graham one on one, not a big bunch of people.

haha his palms were probably sweating.

Some people go on a birthday do to support their friend. We don't all go to make new friends. I would have answered similarly I think! Poor guy!

At my comprehensive we had lessons to perfect our social skills. It wasn't a rich area and it's been fantastically useful throughout my life. Things like asking open ended questions that need more than a " Yes or no". Or extending a conversation when e.g a mumsnetter at a do has asked if you like yoga. " Oh I really want to like yoga, my son loves it, but I'm just not bendy enough. I do follow a fitness lady on you tube though. She's been brilliant. I feel so much better" "Oh yes I love you tube, saved my sanity during lockdown"...and on and on. If someone asks you a question and you don't like it think of strategies to move it along. " So David, what do you do?" Oh I can't talk about that it'd bore you to death but my real passion is......."