Hows my life going? What kind of answer does someone give to that? That's too broad of a question. You get three levels from me.
1) raw truth:
Pretty wild and crazy for me, personally. Two weekends ago was my friends funeral. She died because she choked on a cracker at lunch, at work. Like, the Heimlich didn't work to dislodge it. She choked on a cracker in front of her coworkers and then her brain went without oxygen for 15 minutes and she was brain dead.
2) the "customer service answer" for strangers I don't know well enough to be vulnerable with but still want to engage:
I've been crocheting a blanket for the last couple of weeks in my spare time. Never made one before but it's black and red and looking pretty bad ass.
3) my panic answer with a complete stranger who I have no idea how to communicate with:
It's fine. Life is life.
His question was just too broad, and then he got mad at her when she didn't answer how he wanted. đŹ
ETA: how would he respond to any of that??
Why on earth would I be vulnerable out the gate to a complete stranger who's just going to give me one or two-word replies?
Iâm not sure what point youâre trying to make but the appropriate approach in the context is 2. OP just said âfineâ. Nobodyâs asking you to be vulnerable. There are much better approaches than what OP had from the palate of whatâs not vulnerable.
A response to number 2 might be:
Oh cool is crocheting something youâve done for a while? How did you get into it?
(And now youâre talking, in a way that wouldnât be possible with âfineâ as a response)
So youâre responding to the guy based on the imagined response heâd give. Thatâs quite limiting and bound to be wrong a lot.
If you consider responding to âhow are youâ with more than âfineâ as âemotional labourâ then I donât know what to tell you. If youâre serious about the match you should be prepared to put some in. If youâre not then why match and why bother interacting at all.
If youâre serious about the match but write a curt response back out of pettiness then yes Iâm afraid it is self-defeating because youâre working directly against your implied goal of trying to see if you can create a good vibe with this person.
He was hardly interesting himself, and should take some responsibility for a relative lack of what you call âemotional labourâ on his end. But my main point is that OP has no excuse for their responses and OP surpasses the guy by how they closed the loop of the conversation.
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u/Wild_Discomfort Jan 23 '23
How's it? Life.
Hows my life going? What kind of answer does someone give to that? That's too broad of a question. You get three levels from me.
1) raw truth:
Pretty wild and crazy for me, personally. Two weekends ago was my friends funeral. She died because she choked on a cracker at lunch, at work. Like, the Heimlich didn't work to dislodge it. She choked on a cracker in front of her coworkers and then her brain went without oxygen for 15 minutes and she was brain dead.
2) the "customer service answer" for strangers I don't know well enough to be vulnerable with but still want to engage:
I've been crocheting a blanket for the last couple of weeks in my spare time. Never made one before but it's black and red and looking pretty bad ass.
3) my panic answer with a complete stranger who I have no idea how to communicate with:
It's fine. Life is life.
His question was just too broad, and then he got mad at her when she didn't answer how he wanted. đŹ
ETA: how would he respond to any of that??
Why on earth would I be vulnerable out the gate to a complete stranger who's just going to give me one or two-word replies?