But HOW is it going?!?

Friends,

It's getting old, how I keep taking a few months off from blogging only to come crawling back to you begging for your forgiveness, comments, and blog ideas. And so instead of groveling and pleading for those three things (but mainly the last two, if you wanted to know), I'm just going to forge ahead. 

And forging ahead, at the moment, is looking pretty exciting. I've accumulated some potential blog topics, and I'm ready to get back to more frequent Tangential adventures. And I should have plenty to write about, as I'm currently planning my wedding (which is, of course, a nicer-sounding way of saying that my fiancee is planning my wedding). I'll keep you posted soon on whether we plan to commit any of the cardinal sins of lame weddings: parts one two three.

But after such a long break, I think I need to ease back into the blogosphere. So I hope you'll join me as I inspect one of the least helpful phrases ever spoken by human beings since the dawn of verbal communication.


Answer my question!!!
With information that wasn't already implied by the existence of my question, punk

We often speak in pleasantries. "Small talk". I've gone on record that I don't really like this practice to begin with. But let's lay that argument aside. Small talk is a part of life. And occasionally, it's an annoying and baffling part of that life.

One of the most common questions when getting into small talk gear is, "How's it going?" While in this pure form the question is undeniably vapid (sorry, I forgot I was getting off that soapbox), the phrasing is often used for very real moments of inquiry:

How's the new job going?
How's it going living with your in-laws?
How's the crusade against "How's it going?" going?

These are real questions meant to initiate segments of conversation. But one common phrase, somehow only becoming more popular by the minute, stops these blossoming conversations dead in their tracks. In case you haven't Sherlocked it yet, I'm talking about

"Oh, it's going..."

Yeah, I know it's going. That's why I asked how it's going. Like, when you know there's something, but you want to know more about that thing, so you ask a question about it... that's not some secret way of asking if the thing exists.

How was the movie last night?
Oh, it was a movie...

What do you think of DiCarlo's pizza?
Oh, DiCarlo's has pizza...

What time is the baseball game?
Oh, the baseball game occurs at a time...

This is a total non-answer. Yeah yeah, I'll make a few concessions:

• Usually there's a widening of the eyes and a sad nod of the head accompanying this verbal waste of time. This, I think, is meant to imply that the thing in question is progressing in an intense or cumbersome way. But I'm not a mind-reader, people.
• Sometimes people do follow it up with real information. "Oh, it's going... my mother-in-law keeps making pointless small talk with me, so I try to spend a lot of time at the new job or eating DiCarlo's pizza during baseball games." But sometimes people don't even do this; they seriously just say that it's going. And even when they do elaborate, it makes the opening phrase pointless. It becomes just an annoying filler akin to "It is what it is" or "Can I ask you a question?"

"Tell me how you really feel."

Not sure if I stressed this enough: comments and blog ideas

Have you committed the grave error of saying "Oh, it's going..."?

Which everyday phrases bother you?

From an ESL website: "People who ask this phrase are usually trying to start a conversation."

The Haircut Dilemma

Friends,

I'm kidding when I say this, but still: there might be nothing worse than when someone you know gets a blatantly bad haircut (well, okay, getting one yourself is probably worse).  And not because you have to look at the hairdo...

The problem is that from the moment you lay eyes on that butchered 'do, you're in a real communication pickle.  Let me explain.


The Bad Haircut Dilemma
So you'll know what to do the next time you see me.

Your fate is sealed within 1 second of viewing the bad haircut.  Because within that first second, you have either nonverbally (or verbally) revealed that you notice the change, or you haven't.  If you haven't, then thank your lucky stars, you can escape from this thing unscathed.  Just continue to ignore the person's hair and go on with your life.

If, however, you've accidentally shown that you realize a haircut has occurred, there's no escape in sight.  You're then obligated to lie and say you like it.  There's just no alternative.  Consider the silent approach:

No, once you acknowledge the new hairstyle, you're obligated to say something about it.  Saying nothing to follow it up would be super awkward, as I hope was captured in my drawing of the armless people above.

But what if you really, really hate the new 'do?  I don't know what to tell you.  As far as I can tell, you're looking at a choice between lying and saying something terribly mean.  Just try to learn from your mistake and next time don't tip your hand.  Or just stop noticing the world around you.  But definitely don't make a noticeable response to a friend's strange new look. 

The hard part is that it's so natural to respond to a change in someone's appearance.  When something's different, your eyes tend to go straight there and your face tends to smile or freeze in an awkward surprised expression. 


Let's problem-solve
You know, brainstorming and spitballing and stuff

Is there some creative solution to this dilemma that I'm not thinking of?

Have you been trapped in the Bad Haircut Deathtrap before?

Jon

Don't text while driving or while making an important relational decision

Friends,

Before I start in on this topic, I have about a million disclaimers to make.  A few of them include the facts that:

- I love facebook
- I love my iPhone and its sundry features
- I check my email all the time (in fact, too many times)
- There's no actual recent example of texting (etc.) that is motivating this blog post, so no need to be paranoid or suspicious (unless you broke up with me in 8th grade via a note; you know who you are)
- I'm not writing this from some moral high ground.  I'm writing it from a cocoon of blogging, texting, and emailing from which I rarely emerge

So don't read this as an attack on technology or social media.  I'm not one of those oldfangled people griping about how smartphones and the internet have robbed us of face-to-face interactions with each other.  I'll never advocate a long-term abandonment of facebook in order to free up more time for, um... honestly, I'm not even sure what else there is in life. 

And yet, and yet...


The evils of written text
I was torn between "sundry" and "divers" in that last section, but I was worried you might think I meant "more than one diver"

There are just some things [apologies, confrontations, break-ups, rejections, and the like] that need to be communicated in person.  Or, if not that, over Skype.  In the absence of physical presence or video chatting, some form of telephone.  But don't write it down.  Don't ever write it down.

The problem is, written communication, in which you don't have to look a person in the eye, is just so much easier.  And that, of course, is why we do it.  In the face of something potentially scary or nerve-racking or unpleasant, we'd much rather communicate the words without actually saying them.

The problem with that problem is, people have dignity that demands personal, actual communication. When you need to make one of these communications, I think it's a pretty simple cost-benefit analysis:

the other person's need to be dignified as a human vs. my desire to be comfortable and/or save face

And honestly, I think it pretty much comes down to how selfish we are in that moment.

In sixth grade, it was easier to ask out girls in a note instead of in person or on the phone.  So we sometimes did it that way.  It must have been much, much easier for those girls to break up with us in a note, too.  Because they often did it that way.  In high school, when we were too old for notes but before texting had been invented, we sent our friends to tell people we were mad at them, or else did it over AIM.  In college, we left a note that said, "Dishes!" on the sink.

The only thing we didn't do was make meaningful noises with our mouths to the actual people involved.

And now, in the information age, we have many more weapons in our talk-dodging arsenal.  We've graduated from wide-ruled notebook paper and post-its to texts, emails, and Facebook messages.  But the dilemma is the same, and so is the solution.

Look the person in the eye.


Please comment (ironically in written text form)
But there's no dilemma, unless you're planning on breaking up with me via a blog comment

Do you struggle with this communication dilemma?

Have you been hurt by a text that should have been a meeting? 

Am I making all of this up?

Jon

I'll tell you how it's going

Friends,

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