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

I'm not needy, just wondering what amazing open ended questions I should have asked instead of the ones I did.

It's is easy to say "oh well, you approached it all wrong" or "you're questions are rubbish" or whatever... yet not a single person who criticised has come up with a better way to ask questions/introduce/talk to people.

Oh yes, apart from the "Ugh... I don't go out to talk to people" PPS who seem to think we should all sit in silence at a social event.

Me.

Do you just sit there in silence for 2-3 hours?

So because he didn’t find you interesting or feel the need to engage in pointless chit chat - he’s miserable. You don’t know him and weren’t in his head.

I feel bad for @fanaticalfairy on the one hand, but will also feel duty bound to give critical feedback not on their social skills, but on trying to farm “yeah me too!” responses on Mumsnet.

seriously though, your forum post title? “fuck offfff” … What makes you think you’re this superior being, who gets to decide who should and shouldn’t be at a social event? The person whose birthday it is, decided that he was worth inviting.

He wasn’t invited there for your entertainment. AI can ask the kind of questions you did, so it doesn’t suddenly make you that fascinating or interesting , just because you decided to parrot off some rote questions.

However, some of the replies on here (“you sound needy OP”) are just typical Mumsnet, people trying to needle and wind you up because you dared to take a position. You don’t sound “needy”, that is just a shit insult people bandy about on here when they want to wound an OP but can’t figure out how to.

Meanwhile back to the social event -

You ask “what questions should I have asked”…

Perhaps that’s the wrong question in itself, @fanaticalfairy ?

When you list the questions you asked, all of them are fact-finds. None of them necessarily invite storytelling from the person opposite - and no matter if you’re Stephen Fry, some could easily reply as the chap did, just because the questions are quite basic.

I think part of the challenge is sometimes to allow space - to let the person go silent , and decide if they want to speak to you. They might surprise you! otherwise you run the risk of just looking aimlessly chatty, firing off responses in the hope one hits.

The other thing is, sometimes I’m very direct about what I’d like from someone if I can see they need a bit of help.

So I might ask “tell me the story about how you and Steve met”, on the basis that they recognise this isn’t a one sentence thing. If they say “we met at work”, I might tease them “did you sit next to each other? Did he answer an ad for a friend? Did he spill coffee on you?!” and kind of make it all playful so that the person opens up as a game. If they don’t open up then that’s fine. People are entitled to be introverts - I respect that so much. Often I find with some silence, they come forward - 9 times out of 10 - because people want to be liked.

I can if I have to. I’d rather sit in silence that engage in pointless chit chat with somebody I wasn’t that keen on. It is ok to do that.

It may have taken said person a lot of effort just to be there or he may just not be in to chit chat or just not have liked you that much. All are ok.

Like many threads on MN, this one makes me appreciate my friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and the random people I meet day to day in my life.

Anybody who can’t cope with a social event involving somebody clearly not into her to the extent they start a thread on AIBU telling said person to f**k off - is needy.

Adults can attend social events that don’t go their way and involve all types of people without the above.

Have you ever experienced anyone with social anxiety? My primary aged son has it and also selective mutism, trust me there is nothing hilarious about it.

I'm not going to go into too much detail but what do you think a physchologist would recommend for someone with social anxiety? Stay home or take baby steps? What if in these circumstances they were someone's baby steps and then the OP has come and bashed them on a public forum.

Had the thread title been differnt, then I reckon some of the comments would be too!

Absolutely nothing wrong with attempting to engage with someone in this situation but to come on a public forum and basically tell them to stay home is just plain nasty!

This!

I agree - the forum post title is just unnecessarily nasty, but I think @fanaticalfairy wrote it to try and be Mumsnetty and ironically get lots of praise and likes back from folk saying “I know OP, totally!”

Oh so "tell me a story about how you and Steve met" is wildly different to "how do you know Steve?" Ok.

And it's not like I fired a barrage of questions at him all at once with no time to answer or ask back.
He sat there saying "no....." Looking at me. So I smiled and waited... Having nothing back at all... I asked another question... To try and elicit a response. But no he sat there at my table at a social event just looking at me and not engaging. So after a few moments I dropped it and let him sit on the side on his own looking miserable.

I think people are imagining me rushing up to him firing questions at the poor meek man who just wanted to come to a party and sit alone in the side.

Indeed. I have been to plenty of friends birthdays at long tables where you need to chat to the 3 people around you and you are no where near birthday person.
Refusing to make chat is just rude to those around you at those sort of events.

I think you are being a bit rigid with semantics here. We all know very well that it's different to speed dating, but the definition of a party is a group of people interacting, for whichever common purpose, in this case, enjoying themselves in the company of their mutual friend. I'm not sure how anyone thinks that some organic sort of chatting will 'unfold' as the event goes on, unless at least one or two people introduce themselves and ask a few polite, not massively intrusive questions to show an interest in other guests. That's just not a normal way to socialise with people you've never met and I don't understand why people keep trying to suggest that it is, and that anything else is 'intrusive' or a form of interrogation.

If people only communicate by making statements, how far can that go before a question is required?

Awful weather on my journey.

That's odd. The weather on my journey was fine.

What someone will want to say now is 'where have you driven from?' Which in other words is a 'where do you live' question. If the answer is 'I came straight from work in Leeds' then it's pretty hard to not say 'what do you do for work?' If you don't say that then all you can do is continue to talk about the weather or Leeds, or the weather in Leeds compared to the weather in Manchester where you've driven from. It's nuts. And very dull. And not remotely normal.

I think people are imagining me rushing up to him firing questions at the poor meek man who just wanted to come to a party and sit alone in the side.

Why are you so angry about it?

Why are you so keen to insult him for being as he is, and not like you?

Oh so "tell me a story about how you and Steve met" is wildly different to "how do you know Steve?" Ok.

yeah it is different … One asks the person what you want from them - an account, told in a descriptive way, for entertainment purposes. The other is a fact find question .

it’s subtle. I’m trying not to be difficult here. But “subtle” is perhaps the key?

anyways, this whole thread is like the “driving is a life skill, why can’t non drivers just fuck offfff” posts we get

You have a skill (which is questionable if you do, but hey) which the other guy at the party didn’t have. You come on Mumsnet to tell everyone that he should have stayed at home because he’s not on your level.

She's not angry, she's exasperated. I feel the same about social clods who can't bestir themselves to make polite, reciprocal conversation at parties and gatherings. No one is asking for Shakespearean declamation, just a little give and take.

John would have still said "I know him through work".

And that would have been it. If he's not a story teller, he could have easily said "oh it's not interesting,just through work, how about you?"
But no ... because he didn't have any conversation skills whatsoever and just say there looking at me.

That's the annoyance.

Fine, you don't want to tell me your life story .
.but why sit at my table at a social event and look at me and then refuse to engage in normal conversation?
I'm allowed to be frustrated or bored it whatever I want. And I am allowed to have a Mona on the internet.

OP, perhaps he was one of those deluded men who think a woman making polite conversation was coming on to him.

I have a 3 strikes and out policy. If someone is not playing conversational ball, after the third time, I’m out and make zero effort. I’ve sometimes seen these close mouthed people (both male and female) act bewildered that they’re not being cajoled into to conversation anymore.

I think it's a fair point. They may have had anxiety but in many, many social settings now I find myself doing most of the work and tbh, it's exhausting.

Really! I think most would be feeling relief.

So I might ask “tell me the story about how you and Steve met”

😂

This is MUCH worse than what OP asked and shows the people berating OP may have some social skills lacking.

If you asked me to tell you a story I’d think ‘Who the hell do you think you are, Michael Parkinson?!’

I can if I have to. I’d rather sit in silence that engage in pointless chit chat with somebody I wasn’t that keen on. It is ok to do that.

It is deeply weird to sit at a social gathering in total silence rather than "pointlessly" chat. So @fanaticalfairy , when are we going for brunch and a chat?

I was always taught that when you agree to go to a social event, that's when it stops being 100% about you and your preferences. That you have a basic responsibility to be courteous to others in social situations unless they've given you a reason to be otherwise. Taking "an instant dislike" based on someone's appearance or affect is not a reason for rudeness.

This isn't a question of "skill", it's basic decency in how one treats orhers.

The skill level required for John to reply "work, how about you?" followed by excusing himself to the loo or to get another drink or to make a non-existent phone call if two minutes of talking to OP was truly so unbearable is near zero.

Whether we like it or not, we have an impact on those around us, for good or bad.

The level of self-absorption displayed by some posters on this thread has been a total eye opener. So much "I" and "me" and what they like and don't like, so little acknowledgement of their impact on others - they're only interested in others' impact on them.

You can tell people to f*k off because they don’t have the same social needs as you but don’t expect an easy ride. Most people are adults and are able to cope with a variety of people in social situations.