Don’t ask if you don’t want to tell
Last Tuesday I was out with friends celebrating a birthday. A buddy of mine brought along a date, let’s call her Nadia. This was only their second date but I was happily surprised to see that she would be willing to meet us so soon.
The conversation was going great but I soon started to get annoyed: Nadia would ask us questions but was unwilling to answer the same questions or was vague with her answers. For example, she asked us about the type of work we did and where we worked and we answered without hesitation. When we asked the same of her she answered that she worked in marketing and that she worked downtown and that was the extent of her answer. We had a very international crowd and she asked or guessed each person’s country of origin. When we asked about her country of origin, she would not answer. She suggested that she might answer the next time we met. At this point, we were pretty annoyed with her and turned our interest and conversation away from her.
Nadia and my friend met online and this being only their second date, I can understand why she would be a little cautious giving information about herself. But, I thought it was rude of her to ask questions and then not want to answer these same questions. If you don’t want people to ask you where you work or live, don’t ask this of others. Furthermore, she already knew where I lived (one of the most ritzy building in my city) and asked me many questions about life there and of some of the local celebrities living there.
I am really not sure what she was trying to accomplish by not wanting to answer her own questions: protect herself from strangers, wanting to appear mysterious/intriguing or to have a fun conversation. In any case, she came across as rude, a hypocrite and tiring.
Unfortunately, this is something I am seeing more and more of – people asking you to share everything about yourself but then not wanting to do the same. This really makes you wonder what they are after or trying to hide.
Remember: Don’t ask people questions that you do not want to answer.
