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

"Is there anything you'd like to know about me?"
"No"
I'd definitely like to get to know the person replying with that - brutal!

I was told QE2 used that as an opening gambit, followed by
"And how long have you been doing it ?"
As if she gave a flying fuck about the answers.

It took 4years for my now best friend to get more than 1 word answers from me. Luckily she thought I was worth the effort, had realised (before I did) that I was autistic and took it as slow as I needed to strike up a friendship.

I guess I shouldn't make optimistic assumptions about posters' reading comprehension.

Well that’s a wilful misinterpretation of what I said.

It’s rude to go to a social event with the intention of not engaging. It’s rude to be horrified at someone trying to make conversation. If someone doesn’t like social events they shouldn’t go to them.

However, it is NOT rude to want to engage but to find it difficult. And it’s not rude to try to talk to someone who finds it difficult and maybe get it a bit wrong. There needs to be understanding on both sides.

Then that’s completely fine - feel free not to take the poster up on that tip.

In your example, the “extrovert” would then be literally just answering questions that they had been asked, not monologuing out of nowhere. I would agree with you if you were talking about someone just walking up to a stranger and beginning to talk about themselves unprompted!

Oh God, I have to hope that people try to be a bit less surprising. But I suppose I’d still appreciate that they’re trying to make conversation. I will say that the few seconds OP tried for, it’s fine. My opinion changes if I get stuck for half an hour, though 😊

I feel sorry for anybody who actually is a bit socially anxious reading this thread though. Unless you can talk about extreme sports and have advanced body language reading skills, don’t bother. Don’t ask somebody basic small talk questions.

I agree with OP and Tribulation (and Jeezus F Christ as my dear spouse would say). Making polite conversation, small talk in some lexicons, is part of civilised discourse/ social interaction. It’s not Miss Marple or the Masonic Third Degree. The trouble, it seems to me, is at least two-fold. 1. A large number of people are so wrapped up in themselves (solipsism is the besetting sin of our age, in my view) that they are unable or unwilling to stray outside their own little bubble of experience or comfort. And 2. So much time and effort is spent on SM and screens generally that empathy, engagement and even simple language skills are lost. Dumbing down and catering to the lowest common denominator is wreaking terrible damage on our culture. There, pick the bones out of that, MNers.

I am keeping count.
Conversation openers pp have suggested:
I know Steve because he once slept with my wife ( replace as needed)
The food is great.
The venue is great
Your outfit is great.
Let me tell you about cosplay ( replace with an unusual hobby of your own).

No, it's worse - he was stuck there, whereas at a bar you can sod off!
He was perfectly polite to her, he just didn't want to talk to her. Most people can handle this but apparently it boils OP's piss so much that she has to come and squirt it all over the internet.

Oh, that’s nice, thank you. As I said, I genuinely didn’t understand what I had misinterpreted. But as long as that’s my basic intelligence level versus a conversation about that, I’ll bow my (stupid) head 😊

@BalonzHadASupersoaker you do realise that this isn't your thread?
You've replied more than the op.

I didn’t realise you were counting, I’m pretty sure the OP probably backed out slowly when she saw some of the responses.

If a man asks me a neutral opening question like that, answering politely isn't being excessively polite it's just engaging in normal social interactions. Obviously if he's a creep or bores on for hours I'll be looking to make my escape.

Odd that you have an issue with that.

Where can I find the guidelines on how many posts per thread a non-OP is allowed?

Yes Darcy is fundamentally a good person.....but unfortunately he is genuinely socially rude and arrogant and is justly criticised for it at the start of the novel. He himself acknowledges this once he has learned better.

This guy answered politely though - he obviously just didn't want to talk to OP - should he have said "Let me just stop you there - I don't want to talk to you"? People seem to be acting like he owes her his emotional labour.

Yes. But Darcy was rude at that event. We see later that he’s perfectly capable of making conversation. He just chose not to. And thank goodness for that: there wouldn’t have been much of a novel otherwise.

I'm not, but I get updates that x amount of replies have been added to whatever thread and you keep banging on and on and and on

It's just an extreme example. When she expressed surprise he could just have just laughed, and said " No of course I didn't paraglide off a mountain I work in IT. I'm odd not bonkers" and off the conversation goes

Let me tell you everything you would ever need to know about my running. Oh and I was at the gym this morning, did a wicked crossfit style workout, beat my time. You should really give it a try, I'm a personal trainer so I can show you how to do the exercises. Oh did you know I've run 6 marathons, I love running......the best trainers are....

Trouble is I know that most people don't want to hear that, and would rather the one word answers.

Hint folks, we've been told 100s if not 1000s of times that nobody else wants to listen to our info dumps

I know I keep banging on about body language but if I saw someone I didn’t know at a party and out of politeness decided to introduce myself and make some small talk I would know within seconds of saying hello if my company was welcome - even a fraction before that, at the point you catch their eye, smile and then say ‘Hi, I’m Wordler nice to meet you’

Before that sentence is out I can tell if my small talk is unwelcome, or going to be tolerated for politeness sake or there’s interest in a chat.

If it’s either of the first two, I would do a couple of minutes keeping it breezy and bland and move on.

If it’s the latter then I’m up for working with the person’s level of comfortableness on how personal questions get about themselves or if they want to talk about news, books, the food etc.

He wasn't rude though, he just didn't want a conversation.

I’d genuinely much rather be on the receiving end of an info dump like that than monosyllables.