Weird social interaction
Mar. 1st, 2009 05:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
On the way home from the Drive—while still on the drive—I met some friends, and a fourth person joined us (who had spotted one of them from a café window). It was nice to see them again, and I wish I hadn’t had to run so quickly, but I do need to prepare some lunches for the week before I go off again this evening on a prior engagement, so I really didn’t have time to sit down and chat, alas…
…But I was once again reminded of that observation someone made, which I lend some credence to, that the geek/hacker mindset tends to be very literal-minded and, at least in my case, easily flustered. It’s not just that I get easily flustered by running into friends at random like that—which I do; I need to switch mental gears, and for a while, the wheels just spin emptily without the cogs catching… But that’s not what I mean or was thinking about (though it may be true and relevant: Don’t think, because I act a bit differently and perhaps detached if I meet you by chance, that I’m not happy to see you; if I otherwise would be, it’s probably just that I’m flustered and trying to switch into the proper Social Interaction mindset).
No, what I was talking about here is literal-mindedness—occasioned by my response, poor as usual, to that pernicious question, What’s happening?
That question, in all its guises (What’s up?
, How’s it going?
) is a nemesis to me; I never know how to respond. This is because, as has so often been observed, I always strive to be very accurate, and precise when I can manage (sometimes even at the cost of being comprehensible). A vague and open-ended question is difficult to answer.
It was thrown in stark contrast by someone’s very different take on an open-ended conversation starter last night, which was Tell me three things about yourself
—which, while not ultimately any more specific in what information it requests, nevertheless narrows the field of possible responses down to a point where I can get a concrete handle on it. I immediately started thinking What three facts can I come up with that are expressive and give a view of my personality rather than being three isolated facts?
, and once your conversation-starter gets the other person thinking, that’s presumably some measure of success… Very different from What’s new?
: That one is too vague, and my poor geeky mind can’t help but think that a very great deal of things have changed (as they usually will have between any two occasions), and I’ll end up offering some facts based on my perception of what’s socially normative to mention, rather than anything with deeper substance—whatever that might have been: I don’t know.
The worst greeting of all is, of course, the How are you?
or How are you doing?
variety, which encodes a question that is often not intended. I cannot bring myself not to answer it accurately (or dismissively), even in contexts where it’s pretty clear that the real, intended message is hello
.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-02 03:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-02 06:55 pm (UTC)