AIBU to think it’s rude to ask no questions?

[PestoPastaLife]

We just got back from visiting an older relative - older, but not “elderly” ie still working, active social life, fully compos mentis etc, but I mention older in case it’s a generational thing. Anyway, in the course of three hours he asked only one question “how are you?” and otherwise I had to make all the effort to sustain the conversation.

It made me think about a few other times over the years when I’ve met someone who has asked me no questions and I end up wondering why the conversation feels like an interview and/or why they find me so incredibly dull they can’t be bothered to ask anything!

Now I’m wondering whether some people regard asking questions as rude in principle? But in that case, does a conversation just become two people making polite statements about themselves (which I ended up doing a few times today)?

YANBU: good conversation involves two people asking each other questions
YABU: silence is golden, stop interrogating people

In all honesty I don’t think there’s a formula anyone is going to be able to give you to pop out once you’ve identified you need to be in conversation mode. It’s worth noting that the people who feel it’s good manners to ask questions in the way described all think they are behaving well. Surely it’s not unthinkable that there might be others who don’t think that’s the ideal way to interact? We aren’t the Borg. One set think the other should put some effort in and ask a few questions, the other think the questioners should stop asking questions they find tedious, lazy or intrusive. It’s a mismatch of expectations but neither side is wrong.

Yes there's a constant stream of content coming at us now about what we're doing wrong socially, people used to just moan about rude/boring/not-to-my-taste people to friends and family and they'd never know about it.

I never knew not asking questions was rude until about five years ago, I knew not to sit there like a lump and answering yes or dunno to everything. I'm passionate about learning interesting things from and about other people but I think the things they care about enough to tell you are often more satisfying

I think people do get more self-centred with age but some are born that way. I recently, and unusually, spent time with two elderly men (different occasions) and all they did was talk about themselves. Which is not the same as not asking or finding out about me, I'd agree, but along the same lines.

Once I went on holiday with a friend who spent all the time talking about her ex who'd dumped her, and showing me hundreds of photos of the pair of them on holiday, at home, in the garden, down the pub ... I'd not long returned from doing some aid work in a fly-blown corner of the world & decided to retaliate by showing her my photos. She made her lack of interest clear about 5 photos in and stopped me.

What's the moral here? There's skill and art to conversation which is probably disappearing now but doesn't explain the behaviour of the people listed in my stories as they were all older. Some of us are more polite than others and let people ramble on about themselves, maybe feeling it wrong to interject with stuff about us? I don't know.

Who decided it was rude though? There are lots of ways of having a conversation and showing interest in others without asking questions. It’s more about showing interest and being interesting/sharing a bit of yourself that’s rude. I usually find that once someone has run through their stock list of “openers” they have nothing else to say - not prepared to say anything about themselves or even show interest in your responses to their questions, which is both rude and incredibly dull.

Yes totally agree, I think the ‘social education’ we get through fb and Tik Tok etc does have its positive side as well as the negative side of making people more anxious. On the balance of things it’s probably better for people to have that self awareness than have people talk negatively about you behind your back. I can just imagine older men have never had this communication skills education so are not necessarily being consciously rude or selfish but just don’t know any different

I had severe social anxiety as a teenager/early 20s and would often just sit in a room with another person in silence (my DD is AuDHD and I strongly suspect I am the same).

It wasn't until I read a magazine article talking about asking questions as a conversation filler that I realised that that was what I was supposed to do.

I think I go the other way now and ask too many questions 😅 But I actually feel a lot more comfortable getting other people to talk about themselves than talking about myself, particularly if it's someone I don't know very well.

It's rude.

I don't know about your relative, maybe he's just old and tired. But I hate being asked a string of questions. I prefer a more natural conversation. Someone tells me about a holiday or a hobby or something funny and I respond with a similar story myself. Yes, occasional questions help the flow? But you don't need question after question to have a conversation.

Could be a generation thing. I know some people who were brought up being told it is rude to ask questions. Did he invite you to visit?

I don't think it's generational. I've known my DS's GF for nearly two years now but because she a) offers no information and b) doesn't answer questions I only know what DS tells me. So I want to get to know her but she obviously isn't interested in getting to know me! She certainly isn't shy talking to him. But I'll say "Did you have a nice time at X?". and she'll say it was lovely. That's it. If I say I've done something she'll just smile and say "Mm". No questions. So we sit in awkward silence. Well, I find it awkward because I don't want to rattle on about myself all the time. It's pointless me talking about current affairs because they don't watch the news.
But yes, it's about the art of conversation rather than asking a string of questions.

There are people I don’t see anymore because I realised that, should they be interviewed about me (for some unknown reason), they wouldn’t have anything to say (or they’d make it up). The sort of people who, if you make a noise that might be clearing your throat or might be about to say something, start talking FASTER and LOUDER. They can’t risk you getting a word in.

I always ask questions it makes conversations flow

In one to one conversations, each person should have at least one-third of the talking time - the remaining third is up for grabs. If someone doesn’t get their third then they won’t leave feeling good.

I experience this mostly from people who don’t have continuous daily interaction like work or kids at home. My mum is terrible for it and I thought it was an age thing (she’s retired)but recently have noticed some of my friends who are SAHM with kids in school do it. No, not bashing SAHMs for anyone who wants to pick a fight. Talking about people who spend a lot of time on their own or with their own thoughts.

Edited to add that in my experience it’s the long monologues and not asking questions vs the staying silent and making the whole conversation painful!

I've got a friend like that. Just one question and then they're not interested in the answer. Then they just rant and rave on about the same old boring subjects. Gawd it's excruciating. They are nice in other ways though. But only in small doses.

No offence taken at all but I disagree that once asked a very light question, someone is then obliged to give a long, detailed answer. Why do you assume that ?

They can answer as briefly or fully as they like and then pass the question back;

eg if you don’t want to chat you can simply say,

”Scotland, how about you?”

That is generally how two people work out mutually whether they have anything in common or not. It’s known as normal social interaction.

If you prefer to sit in silence that’s completely fine but to my mind it’s not wholly appropriate when you are a guest at a dinner or wedding.

Or is your conversation always superior, profound and meaningful off the bat?

Feeder questions are by definition tedious and slightly inane as they serve a purpose to simply get the conversation going. Everyone who is willing to be vaguely pleasant and friendly and open to be interested in others, understands that and moves on.

This.

Of course you don’t ask people a string of questions like an interrogation.

One very mild opener question is sufficient to get conversation going if the two people concerned are willing.

I think I read that when we're asked a question about ourself, it trigger dopamine release in the brain - a little burst of joy! And that people who ask about 30 times as many questions as the average person were rated as the most popular and likeable in one study - must dig out that book, I bought it in an airport a few years ago so it must have been a best seller. I think this used to be taught in those etiquette books that upper class women read in Jane Austen's times. But the men often didn't read them, which is maybe why so many were portrayed as bores by JA. If your whole life was pretty much just one social event after the other it was taken very seriously!

I am exactly the same. By the time I've thought about what to ask my friend she's firing another question at me and then I feel bad not asking!

Interesting range of responses!

I do agree that a good conversation is more than just a string of questions. I think my issue is it felt like I was doing all the conversational heavy lifting - if he had asked questions about any topic, or volunteered information outside of it being a response to a question, that would have been fine. He wasn’t droning on about his own stuff, it just didn’t seem to occur to him when there was a pause in conversation that he might try to fill it.

People asking whether he wanted to see us - honestly I’m asking myself the same thing now! He came to see us in January (when the conversation was easy enough that I didn’t think about it) and we said then “oh we will come see you next time!” Then I asked a few weeks ago about seeing him in the summer, and we arranged a date. So I suppose we did invite ourselves, but sort of by pre-arrangement. Unfortunately we are two hours apart so a visit of less than three hours doesn’t really make any sense. It is a bit of a duty situation but I feel rather sad at the idea that he doesn’t want to see us - he isn’t a recluse by any means so it would be rather personal!

But in all fairness, there are some mitigating factors on both sides I won’t go into that might explain why he wasn’t being a great conversationalist and I was struggling to fill the gap, so I’ll try not to overthink it on this occasion. I posted the AIBU more because it made me think about other people on other occasions who don’t seem interested in finding out anything about me (including what I think about non-personal topics they bring up) and I wondered why this might be case.

Would it maybe be better next time to meet outside the home @PestoPastaLife ? It often makes conversation easier as you can talk about what's going on around you or what you're up to.

If there were 2 of you visiting then if there was a pause in conversation could the two of you not just talk about something general so he could join in if he wished? Also pauses aren’t necessarily bad. Some people don’t leave large enough gaps in the conversation for other people to feel they aren’t interrupting by saying something.

It sounds more like nobody had anything interesting to say rather than about not asking questions.

Can you see how this might get misinterpreted? Questions don’t have to be rude (pointed questions are rude) they can also be just a device for moving the conversation on past small talk. Someone has to make the transition from small talk and it feels fair if everyone makes the effort to do that.

So for example “I noticed your roses are blooming, are you a gardener?” Yes it’s a question, but not really very personal and it opens out the conversation for you go where you please.

Similarly, “you have a stack of books there waiting to be read - anything you’d recommend?” These are just “starters for ten” that signal I am happy to talk about books.

Even, I see H+M are supposed to be moving back to blighty, they seem to be very Marmite, don’t they?