I'm sorry about the delay. Last week I bought a really nerdy card game, and the late night hours when I normally blog have been spent trying to acquire more victory points than my friends.
Anyway, I think most of my Tangents fit into one of three categories:
a list or analysis of things from pop culture
a philosophical idea or lesson learned from a personal story
a foaming-at-the-mouth diatribe against something that annoys me
Today's Tangent is from category 3, but no worries-- I got my rabies shot (thanks, NBC, for your awesome PSAs).
The problem with pleasantries
Beside the fact that they're not pleasant enough to warrant that name
Most conversations start with Hello, Hey, or Hi. The h-word of choice is then immediately followed by a question, e.g.
How are you?
How's it going?
What's up?
What's going on?
The first two represent questions about quality of life, and the second two concern recent or interesting happenings. I will address both types, but my main issue is with the former.
Questions about how a person is doing just seem like stupid ways to start a conversation. Let's say I'm doing pretty terribly. The following will transpire:
Person: Hey man! How's it going?
Me: (It's going suckily. I've got 8 work things stressing me out, 3 relationships on the fritz, I'm having a bad hair day, new bills just arrived, I can't find my favorite t-shirt, my laptop crashed, I stepped in a puddle, and I have no plans this weekend. And diarrhea.) Good, thanks! How are you?
There's no option in most conversational settings to reveal how crappy we might be feeling. As I'm shaking hands with someone at a coffee shop, it just doesn't seem okay to reveal that I'd rather be at home on my couch and not have to move or think for the next 24 hours. And yet, I'm asked how I'm doing. "Pickle!!!"
The other type of opening questions aren't much better, mainly because no actual answer is expected. To ask someone "What's up?" is just another way of saying, "Please say 'Not much' and then begin our actual conversation." Were it an actual question, it would be difficult to address right at the outset of the conversation; I mean, a million things are going on, and filtering which ones are worth mentioning is too much mental strain for one moment. That's why we have the actual conversation, to bring up and discuss those things that are up.
A problem with no solution
To be fair, there definitely might be a solution. I just don't offer one here.
It seems to me that the only ways to break out of this pickle would be to stop asking these meaningless opening questions or to start answering them earnestly. But neither one seems feasible. They're so ingrained in me that I don't know if I could quit asking them. And I hate to say it, but on those rare occasions in which someone answers honestly about hurt and pain and discouragement, I can't help but think, "Dude, quit being such a Debbie Downer. We're in an Applebee's."
Other people try to circumvent the superficiality by asking, "How are you doing -- really?" But unless you're on the phone or alone somewhere, this just seems too emotionally invasive, especially for the very first thing said in a conversation.
Your turn
No funny small text this time.
What's up?
How's it going?
What's going on?
How are you?
But seriously, comments appreciated.
Jon
Hi Jon!
ReplyDeleteDo you double space between sentences?
Yes. (Good convo. No need for small talk.)
DeleteHere's the deal--
ReplyDeleteThe sarcastic side of me that rides on being funny, and loves a clever phrase agrees with you. Debbie Downers should be kept out of Applebees.
But what if the truth is that the real us's (usses? uses? ahhhh, we!), that we--the real you, the real me, etc.--care? The questions aren't the problem. We just need to remember that we care. That if I were sitting across from someone, and while we traded chatter, she was in pain, or confusion, or need, and I didn't know it--well, I'd hate to think that. That someone needed me, and I was just that close, and that she'd walk away in need. Would you really, actually, truly be annoyed that when you asked "What's up?" he answered, "Dude, I've never been so depressed"?
Now, it might be an inconvenient time. Maybe you're feeling pretty down yourself and don't think you have anything to offer. Maybe there are too many people around, and you feel self-conscious about being suddenly thrust into a heavy convo. Maybe the boneless wings are just hitting the table, and the Cubs are on the big screen.
But I think most of us would want to know anyway. Though, I guess it's simple to isolate the example like that. Harder in practice. Harder when I am feeling down, or scared, or busy, or superior, to ask "How are you?" and to mean it.
Man. Cancer, caring, Clue...my comments are getting way too serious! Forgive me, I've been feeling kind of melancholy this week. ;-)
Yeah, in the event of someone actually opening up about pain, I would feel for them regardless of the timing or setting. Though it's not the way I phrased it (I write to maximize entertainment, not necessarily accuracy), that annoyance is more so a feeling I have with myself on those rare occasions when I open up unexpectedly.
DeleteThe Clue story is HILARIOUS. (if anyone else is reading this, you can find the Clue story in a comment on the Scramble with Friends post.)
Agreed all the way. Is anything gained by asking these questions?
ReplyDeletePersonally, I prefer the head nod of acknowledgement which has the same effect. But the nod is more for a quick passing rather than the intro to a conversation.
Also, that PSA is fantastic, I had never seen it.
Also, don't forget the equally-irritating-by-their-false-attempts-at-being-catchy ones, and any that rhyme:
ReplyDeleteWhat's shakin', bacon? (There is no bacon...anymore.)
What's the news? (Do I look like Dan Rather to you?)
Etc.
Unless you want me to answer you literally (and I will), I'd rather have the obvious throwaways so that we can get into the actual meat (such as bacon) of the conversation.
Drat. Now I want bacon.
This was really encouraging and I can't wait to spend my summer with you.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I usually do answer tbese kinds of questions seriously.
I agree - it's stupid to ask questions you obviously don't expect answers to, and sort of weird when people are honest in a setting that clearly implied a quick response. Here's the protocol I try to follow to avoid such occasions:
ReplyDeleteon the street: smile and say hey (no questions, no answers) - exceptions are when it's someone I know really well, or at least well enough to carry on a non-awkward conversation
any other thing, like meeting people places: try to greet and ask a directed question if I'm on my toes...ie. Hey, how was your weekend away?..Hey, how's your mom doing?..Hey, did you see that new Hunger Games trailer?! (sorry!) As you've stated that there doesn't seem to be a solution, this method still tends to get right to the point, so people can be caught off guard by the suddenness
And the "how are you doing, really?" wonder where that came from coughkirstincough:-)
Z
This is a retro-active comment because I just couldn't get enough of your blog the other day! So I was digging deep in to the archives.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I do have a comment on this topic after realizing something I said this morning:
Me: "Hi Jim! How are you?"
Jim: "Good, thanks"
Me: "Good!"
A similar but different scenario could have taken place in which I wouldn't have even had to adjust my response:
Me: "Hi, Jim! How are you?"
Jim: "Good, thanks. How are you?"
Me: "Good!"
I've been conditioned to reply "Good" in this pleasantry in all cases because it can either mean 1) "Good, I'm glad you're doing well." or 2) "I'm good, too!"
So...guilty. Of all of the above.