missing out on a lot of Intel if you don’t do the small talk, IMO.
I like coffee talk. Who gives a whoop
^ Oh my gawd!
to me saying hello and asking how they are doing is not small talk. small talk is some bloke telling me how he spent the weekend working on his garden while his wife was banging the neighbor next door.
That’s not small talk. He’s feeling you out as a potential accomplice in his wife’s murder.
Without thinking I often ask “whats up?” or “how’s it going?” as a general hello to cash register workers I see frequently at the local market etc., not too long ago one guy tried unloading on me about how his life is miserable and he has no friends or some shit. My response was something around the lines of “uh cool, ok thanks, I don’t need the receipt.” Wife tried to tell me that was a mean and horrible response, I respond to her that I don’t even know this fucking guy and saying how’s it going is not an invitation for me to be his personal therapist when all I really want to do is checkout post haste with my whisky and go drown my sorrows quietly in private like a grown adult.
i also hate people who do small talk about their family. listen i come to work to get away from that shit, no one gives a crap that your son didnt make the basketball team because he is an unathletic waste of cells or how excited your daughter is to start 5th grade.
or how you spent the day driving your kids to and from practice and to the mall.
keep that sh1t to yourself or get a therpaist
+1 also how about when they bring their kids to work or have them visit. Brutal.
yea back when i was an office monkey i made it a point never to volunteer any information about my family (except when asked about it or if it was relevant to a conversation) hoping others would catch on and get the hint. didn’t work. people just have really wonderful, talented kids and everyone should know about it.
Right, but you asked the question. Non-Americans always laugh about this, “why do Americans always ask this, when they don’t give a sh!t?”. Nobody understands why, it’s pretty weird, and a huge waste of time. Calculate the number of times per day some zombie in America asks a pointless question, and triggers a pointless answer, it’s a lot of wasted mouth action per year. It’s also an emotional drain, just be silent.
I was going to validate your comment with a response until I remembered I don’t actually care about anything you have to say.
^ It’s not just me asking, it’s the other 96% of the planet too.
Is this really so different from “Ni hao ma?”,“Hao bu hao?”, or even “Tudo bem?”
^ Apparently yes, since Asia keeps asking me why Americans do it.
The American style pushes for a specific answer, without caring what that answer is, YET they become uncomfortable and offended if you don’t make one up. That’s pretty weird.
Frankly I’m not surprised. 90% of people who post on internet forums are socially awkward, introverted and/or so nerdy they think they are too smart to talk to the average person (i.e. zero emotional intelligence). I used to run a site with thousands of members and organized get togethers at my sponsors. I saw first hand how weird these folks were. I also attended events run by other sites and witnessed the same thing.
What makes AF even freakier is that it’s not only people posting on internet forums but also people that are studying or have studied the CFA curriculum. Just take a look at any test center to see how awkward these folks are. The vast majority of AF posters most likely suffer from that double whammy.
A woman will tell you everything you want to know (good and bad) if you just smile, laugh, ask a few questions…just enough to keep the convo going.
I’ve yet to meet a chick that didn’t like to talk about herself and was smart enough to not tell you things they shouldn’t.
Maybe they are from Asia and think you are really awkward with your small talk and eye contact directed at strangers? Betcha never thought about that!
No, the answer to the American style “How are you,” is “I’m fine.” Possibly with a “Thank you,” or “And you??” after it. There is no pushing for a specific answer, which is why many parts of the world (e.g. Germans, some Brits) get confused when they hear it, start to offer one, the American isn’t paying attention, and say they wonder why it was asked in the first place.
What the original poster is complaining about is precisely that some people here take advantage of the question to deliver a specific (and often long) response, which is only appropriate if you have some familiarity with the person and they have reason expect you to be interested. The complaint here is that you don’t unload your business on random strangers just because they said “How are you”. You accept it as a greeting and give the standard answer unless you have a level of familiarity where you can assume the actually care.
Many languages have this expression: How are you? / Is everything good?
Ni hao ma?
Tudo bem?
Como estas?.
Comment allez-vous?
'Sup, dude?
And most of these languages have a kind of expected default response. The differences are perhaps in what different cultures expect as a response. If you ask a German how they are doing, they’ll either tell you it’s none of your business or they will tell you exactly how they are doing. Some Americans will do that, but in many cases that’s considered “oversharing” by even normal people.
But most of these other languages have standardized responses, and I suspect you will get similar reactions from many other nationalities if you respond to “Ni hao ma?” with how you didn’t get good nookie from your GF last night or the eggs were cold, etc… Just don’t do it with Germans.