Small Talk Questions You Should Never Ask
The best thing about a wedding is that nosy acquaintances stop asking you, “When will you two get married?” Worst of all, they start asking you, “When are you two having children?”
Modern society has somehow overlooked a crude question of a certain kind: the friendly exploration of someone’s progress towards traditional life milestones. These potentially risky questions are often viewed by peers, extended family, and acquaintances as the start of an easy conversation. We learned how to answer these questions , whether by politely deviating from the topic or by addressing an underlying emotional issue. Now let’s dive into something that shouldn’t be asked in the first place.
Inappropriate questions are almost inevitable. Small talk is about getting to know people, and it’s impossible to predict everyone’s personal boundaries. And it can be nice to deliberately engage in a more meaningful conversation. It is important to understand how trivial seemingly questions can hurt sore spots.
“Good etiquette is about making others feel comfortable and respected,” says Mika Meyer, founder of the Beaumont School of Etiquette in New York. “So before you ask a question, think about how the other person might be feeling. Any question that might cause pressure, discomfort, awkwardness or judgment on someone should be avoided. ”
Relationships and family
“When will you two finally get married?” may seem like an innocent joke question. But what answer are you waiting for? You are not asking for a warning; when someone is engaged, they will definitely tell you. Rather, you seem to be asking their opinions about the institution of marriage, or hinting that their relationship looks dated. Also not suitable for starting a conversation.
If you want to ask about a relationship, start with something more innocent. If you start with the vague “How is your partner?” you can let the other person decide how to answer in detail. Or talk openly about your life, but don’t demand that they rise to the level of your intimacy.
“When are you two having children?” even worse. The reasons for the absence of children are countless, personal and sometimes unfortunate. An honest answer might be “Everything was hard since the miscarriage last week” or “It turns out the adoption agency is a kind of racist,” but if you are not a close friend, the person you are asking will have to come up with an innocent answer, distancing himself from you without your knowledge. “Instead,” advises Mayer, “you can ask someone, ‘Tell me about your family,’ and even if he has no children, he can still tell you where he is from or about his relatives.”
When talking to someone with children, avoid judgmental statements like “When will you have more?” or “Did you want a girl instead?” Just ask about children who really exist: how old are they, what are they? Don’t ask what milestones the children have achieved; The last thing a parent needs is another person testing their children.
Pregnancy
It is quite obvious why “Are you pregnant?” does not fly. You really can’t be too careful. I was chatting with a friend in her eighth month and still waiting for her to be the first to bring this up. Even less inconvenient than a false positive.
For the same reason, if you know someone is pregnant, “Do you have twins?” outside the field. If yes, then be sure to mention it. When you hear the due date, believe it. Work very hard to avoid even a hint that a pregnant woman is fat, or obsession with how thin she is. Just avoid any suggestion that you are evaluating their body.
If they tell you the gender of the baby, respond positively, but don’t treat it as a “win” (unless the parents already do it openly). When my colleague was pregnant with a boy, several people asked, “Is your husband happy?” Odin even congratulated her on “doing her job,” as if she had produced a male heir for Henry VIII.
Don’t get hung up on parenting plans. “Are you going to breastfeed?” or “Were you born naturally?” are important decisions, and any advice you give is definitely better explained with a dozen parenting books and refuted by a dozen others. The only appropriate advice is completely optional, free of value judgments, and aimed at making parents-to-be feel better and freer. People give birth and raise children in different ways, most of them work fine, and you are not the brave thinker who will reveal the secrets of SIDS.
Work
“Do you like your new job?” not that rude, but it can be embarrassing. If they don’t like their job, they probably don’t tell everyone, so you’ll force them to lie. Just rephrase so as not to require value judgments. “What is your work?” or “What are you working on?” a little easier to answer without thinking about a career.
Another gray area is participation in a long-term project. “How is your book / podcast / side business doing?” it seems that you are requesting a progress report. Instead, ask about any specifics you’ve learned, or clarify anything they’ve posted on social media about the project. This way you get closer to the parts they’ve already chosen to show the world, which is probably much more interesting to you than the percentage of work they’ve done.
At the first meeting, even the most common introductory question can be risky. Meyer advises against starting with the old phrase, “So what are you doing?” how it might sound opportunistic. If your goal is to get to know someone better, this question will only work if they enjoy their job enough to talk about it outside of office hours. (Even worse is the downloaded version I got from a tech conference: “What are you doing?”). If you start out cold: “What are you doing for fun?” much more useful. By definition, an answer is what the other person wants to talk about.
If you know someone is in between work, the well-meaning follow-up can sound like a whining. As the list of rude questions about finding a Muse job shows , this is a minefield. People trying to find a job may feel like the world calls them worthless, and if you spend them it won’t earn you any points. Avoid sentences like “Have you thought about going back to school?” You will not be the one to convince them to change course or stop. Even such a simple question as “Where did you go?” creates an expectation that you will later register for a progress report, says Muza. If you really want to help, ask what they are looking for. And be careful if you offer any leads; leave enough room for them to politely deny you.
Use your judgment
Most of the questions above are relevant in certain contexts: among partners, close friends, or immediate family members. This is one of the reasons why they are not suitable for small talk: they hint at intimacy and ask for vulnerability. When you ask for an account of someone’s life, you are also asking them to evaluate your relationship with them.
We naturally want to make some relationships more intimate over time, so we can’t avoid checking boundaries. But by paying more attention to the hidden meaning of your questions, you can match them to the context of the relationship. As Mayer advises: “Before asking a question, assess the level of its sensitivity.” If it’s much more delicate than what you usually talk to someone you know, put it aside for another time.