Holy shit. I have ALWAYS thought the people around me were being unconscionably intrusive and power-playing in their starter conversations and they told me I was antisocial and oblivious to culture norms. Turns out, maybe I’m just from a different culture.
Huh. This is really interesting.
I’m disabled, and it’s really uncomfortable to field that question about work in a social setting. (”Why no, random person at the yarn store, I don’t want to tell you about that, or about the nature of my disability”.)
I like his
“So how do you spend your time?”question better.
A formative experience in my early twenties was when I was in a mixed group of people and we were instructed to pair off and get to know each other. My partner and I looked at each other glumly. I was a young white girl who had arrived from another country and was painfully lost and alone. He was a magisterial black British man in his forties with a greying beard and interesting clothing. He looked at me with the expression of a socially awkward introvert being asked to do a group exercise, so I tried to Hlep.
“So um what do you do,” I started, and then I saw this most complicated and weary and sad expression on his face and just yelped “WAIT no I’m sorry I’m SO sorry I didn’t actually want to ask that! I meant! AH! What do you love!!!”
“Ugh,” he said. “Well, I really love pottery.”
“I ALSO LOVE POTTERY,” I yelped like a Hleping chat-robot.
“I am assisting my disabled elderly father in his dying process, and I am not currently employed,” he said.
“I have just immigrated and I am not currently employed,” I said, gratefully. “What kind of pottery do you like.”
“The kind that is rough on one side and shiny on the other,” he said.
“ME TOO,” i said.
The leader came over, “how are you getting on?”
And we both barked, in the identical tones of introverts being asked how they are getting on, “WE LIKE POTTERY.
We took two pottery classes together, made some rough/shiny objects and never spoke again.because he did not believe in the internet, and at the time I did not believe in phones.
But I think about him, and that exchange, all the time. I didn’t even want to know what he “did.” I just felt like it was what adults say. And if I hadn’t recovered the question I wouldn’t have known Hermes and made a bunch of really fucked up pots with him
One of the things I dread about internet dating is that ‘So what do you do for a living’ usually comes up in the first 5 minutes, before I even know if this is a person I want to tell about my personal and somewhat complicated health/disability/employment situation. But NOT answering the question tends to be really obvious and make things weird
Unlearning How White People Ask Personal Questions
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