Also, I dont expect that the LW is bothered by every person who casually asks this question; Im sure they can tell when someone is just making chit chat vs someone who is interested in spending time together. She does recognize that its a way people make small talk and that its not likely to go away any time soon. Umm.pardon me, I wasn't listening. Hello, theres a related phenomenon of *cashiers who dont know you* asking the question. This week is bad for me, but next week Im free except Tuesday. But people should take turns is different from someone else should always go first (or for gendered/other status reasons, I should always go first). Im saying lets not be unkind to the LW for disliking or feeling stress about this particular social situation. Why? But most of all, thats my time with my kids, and Ive realized that Im missing it. No way. Do not copy, print, or repost entire posts elsewhere without written permission. I think my aunt asks this question for the same reason you do. @freyasacksen I have a friend who will almost always respond with, Still alive. Always true. When exercising the advantages of a perceived difference in class or power, however, refraining from using or responding how are you? is an old patrician tactic designed to keep the interlocutor in her place. Most people would rather talk about themselves than anyone else, so turning the question back to them will almost always divert them from further questions about what Im doing. Also it varies on friend one friend, if I ask him if hes free Friday, we both understand that means beer and movies until the early hours, by default. This is absolutely true; it IS rude to put someone on the spot like that. If it is in fact a lead up to an invitation or request I can always either find room for it or say I dont have time. Unless someone asked me, "What are you doing this weekend?". Good, looks like the flowers are coming out (in Spring) Funnily enough, my co-workers are also doing laundry. He doesnt need to be that nosy about how you spend your time. I compared to you older friends of mine I see ruining their relationships with their adult children through constant disrespect, but then being bewildered as to why things are going so badly. I think it goes back to the same annoyng assumption there are people who assume your time is theirs. Darn, my wife wants me home early [so we can watch Netflix on the couch with our cat].. Personally what works for me to feel non-imposed-upon is for someone to either tell me I have time to think about it, say hey if you cant I understand or similar, and generally act like they care about my opinions, feelings, and consent. Climbing mt laundry! I also use ooh, Im not sure whether Im driving my stepson to his Dads that weekend, Ill have to check for longer-term put-offs. Then, actually do check your calendar, check in with yourself if you actually want to do whatever it is, and answer the person when its convenient for you. Just make sure to follow these three rules for sending Tinder messages: Keep it PG-13, even on Tinder. I should have specified that this particular woman was white, of a european background, and when she elaborated it was pretty clear that she was getting the I am genuinely curious about you variety of the question and not the You arent REALLY one of us implication. It seems to me to have grown somehow out of how do you do, to which the appropriate response was, of course, how do you do. ), its pure formula. Im in my 20s and married, living away from home, but I feel like Im constantly playing tug-a-war with my parents and were fighting over boundaries. One girl mentioned the How are you? and said shed learned not to answer it truthfully because people dont actually care. All of us Americans responded that, well no, its not that we dont actually care. Weekend gone! There are two good situations for teasing: 1) when someone talks about something unusual like Lily did; 2) when someone is not very good at something, such as singing out of tune. I immediately turn it around on them. I love so hard your example in #3. My small college town has become a lot more cosmopolitan over my lifetime, and weve got enough of an international population now that Im deeply curious about many of the customers at the store where I work. Where I live, in Sweden, you can ask your family, friends, coworkers etc How are you? and the reply would typically be somewhere between Its good and Im a litte tired because the baby has a cold, but otherwise things are good, but never Kind of bad, my depression is making life really dark right now (at least not when used as a small-talk question). It all feels like a gross, stupid game I dont want to play. Ive got annoyed enough over this that I have been uncharacteristically assertive and told him that I dont like being asked out like that and that Id prefer that he just ask me outright about whatever activity it is and the date. But it can also just mean I love you and want to hear about things youre doing that youre excited about; it comes up all the time with friends who live far away! Helen Huntingdon mentioned interruptingI just want to say, thats a helluva an assumption. That wasnt an assumption it came directly from what you posted about deciding to take her leisure time. Other commenters have given great scripts. you said you had no plans! you into babysitting or helping them with yardwork, they just want to ask you a fun, low-stakes question. Oh my god I have to go to (thing) which is (plaaaaace). UGH. ME to GROUP CHAT: [Friend] and I are planning karaoke on [date] If you are available and interested, please let me know by [date] and Ill reserve a room! Why not be honest? People here may be disagreeing that it should be a normal social rule, but if you change your behavior to meet that, youll be wrong by other standards. Demanding person: Are you busy this weekend? Fill in the gaps using the correct form of Future Simple Tense. 2. B: Cool. I think feeling unsafe crosses the line where a relationship cant be repaired. And we do know that extreme surveillance is a very brutal and destructive form of torture. He sometimes vocally wonders why other teams and departments will go out of their way to help me with things but not him, and its because I respond to their small talk rather than shutting it down and gently rebuff social overtures rather than saying No, I dont want to get to know you better or similar. Theyre private and you dont need to know them. Whaaaaaat. We should hang out sometime soon! Is something I expect people to either reply yeah that would be fun or ignore/tell me theyre swamped but wish they could do as a no. Later the grad students said the table turned to remarking on the professor as soon as she was out of earshot, including their surprise that she could be a professor of engineering. Im planning an event on Day, are you free? That would feel like a very odd response if I were making small-talk with the question. Her Kid: *rings doorbell* again my mum says shall we wait for you? And sometimes the answer is well but if they respond that way theyre not your friends anyway, but we interact with a lot of people who are not our friends but who are important to our lives (coworkers, for example, or in-laws) and yet who can levy that cost. And if I run into but surely you dont need BOTH days to yourself? Im also prepared to retort with something like, Maybe you dont, but Im very excited for two days to decompress. So that golden rule requires a bit of pre-invitation sounding-out. I usually reply with Nothing, in which Nothing means knitting, crocheting or basket weaving and listening to audio books. But the thing is that people who were born in other contries than here (Sweden) ask me where Im from all the time. They need to stop it. Just how I like it :). Its the same here. Thats thats exactly what makes it a microagression. You always say Im working on my crochet projects this weekend. LW gets that we all know this, and should be less friggin bigoted about shoving our nosy questions at a population for whom nosy questions are constantly tied to real threats of violence. I mean, where are you REALLY from, but whats up is harder, since nothing/dont know tends to elicit a why not? or you should be/do more fun! And I dont know what to say to that, because no just seems rude and I didnt invite them to improve my life. Must say I kinda love your kids response. In that case I would begin with the duty: I need a babysitter. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Funny Responses to Rude Comments Sorry fella, I don't have the energy to pretend to like you today. I'd Be Better if You Asked Me out If I Was Any Finer, I'd Be China Its hard to navigate things as just small talk when follow-up questions and comments quickly lead to territory I dont want to discuss. Yeah if I like the person and might be into it I usually friend-flirt with a depends on why!. Your mother/father and I are going to X, would you like to come along?. A possible script: Sorry, Aunt, if I dont do laundry this weekend, Im not going to have any clean clothes. So the reframing may help. Them We need to have lunch soon And suddenly many things became clear. Feeding a giraffe. Good luck. Sometimes we dont have plans, but that doesnt mean Im willing to just let her do any old activity. (Full disclosure: Whole in-law family are control freaks and this type of thing IS a setup with them. Also, Ive had dozens of this same conversation and witnessed hundreds more: [person comes up to their friend] They were being blunt and probably didnt realize the pressure I felt to say yes to direct requests, and didnt understand why I felt hurt when, upon working up the courage to ask for something directly, it was turned down. To read all future answers to your comment, please bookmark this page. Read also. That would have been a really frightening prospect for me. Can you repeat what you just said? All right, good, fine, grand are the normal answers, and then its repeated back. Them : Ah, then Ill get back to you (They never get back to you). Thinking of seeing [movie]. E- Enjoying. My usual caveat- I am a very private person who others sometimes describe as off-putting and I perform the expected feminine social role like an ill-fitting plastic Halloween costume. You? and see if he gets stuck in a loop. For example, I used to host (board and card) game nights at my home, and Id create an event on Facebook, invite everyone who was part of this group, and ask them to please let me know as soon as they knew whether or not theyd be there, at least by the day before, so I could plan how much food Id need to buy/make. You can do it as far as you can. Nothing very interesting. Ive learned a lot of strategies.). You have to answer the . So, sometimes it is a trap! Yeah, I do the same. As such, I like to preface it with taking care of some stuff. Jana: I'm good. 2. It is one of my pet peeves. Any/all such inquiries get an automatic Unsure have to ask my other half., Sans that Id just go with Unsure. Are you busy? And when I say angling, it might not be in a cornering way. You are never going to stop hearing this question from relative strangers and new acquaintances, but I think with close friends or family, you should be able to say to them the next time, you know Im a pretty straightforward person; if you want to invite me to something you can just ask me directly. or some variation thereof. Sounds like hes a robot instructed to find out a fun thing the customer is doing later. I, personally, issue a lot of soft invitations because I actually dont want to go to the trouble of planning something with someone who doesnt want to hang out in the first place? (Like just because I have no plans, I must do the Thing she wants to do. So I got in the habit of saying, I have no plans and thats just the way I like it. The Gladys response is a strategy where all anyone will ever see is you beaming at Pushy Neighbor, talking in a hugely positive way at Pushy Neighbor, and so on, but youre still getting to tell Pushy Neighbor to back the fuck off. Him: Nothing at all? Its okay that my body needs time to recuperate. I know whats best for me. If they continue after that, theyre super pushy and rude and Ill say as much. She gets what crowds people like and is on point with inviting me to the right events. In my case its also true (OH is much better at executive function than me). I love you. Theres just no way, you see, that this is what a womans mind does, what she is for. You: Oh, I have a few plans but Im free for the good stuff!. We all walk the kids to school together and she started calling in at our house every. I kind of resent that you assume I will tell you.. I have a colleaguestraight white well-employed middle-class-raised Christian cis man, so about as privileged as you can get in Americawho opts out of a lot of what he considers to be optional social stuff. (And boy howdy, did she get pissy when I responded with not really. We did NOT live together well.). I think there is something to be said for family relationships between adults where the balance is between emotional labor and responsibility for the home rather than money. What did _you_ have in mind?. picked up a shift right off the bat. Like, you want to hang out with me, but dont want to ask me straight up. The joke about (insert joke) cracked me up on your profile. Like oh youd rather do nothing at all than do this activity with me, wow., I wish I had better boundaries around that. Or something. Its okay that I usually watch movies/play videogames/read all weekend and those arent shameful hobbies. Them: We should have lunch soon. I never know how to respond when service people ask How are you? and is seems almost like a variation of just saying hi. I am admittedly very sensitive to potential power issues, so I have a hard time seeing when theyre really there and when Im just reacting as though they are. This one calls for what I call the Gladys response, because I saw it articulated by a woman named Gladys. If anyone else runs into this, Im not free on Saturday, so Ill see you some other time! is a perfectly polite and respectful response. OK, you want to ASK if hell help you w/ your home maintenance, fine, but these are not HIS chores anymore. Sometimes friends do tell me theyre free, but if I suggest something, they might still say nah, not what I want to do this weekend and thats fine as well! The problem with these is that the aforementioned cousin who wants you to babysit may treat your I dont know as nothing at all, I have zero excuses. You need to know your audience, but it does work well for the nosy-only requests. So now as far as she knows, I am very very very busy. Weekend is like God's blessing! LW specifically gave examples of when it happens and why it annoys them, yet dozens of people are trying to splain that this is just small talk in their part of the world. I really thought that an invitation was going to come later. So if you say Im probably going to that new movie, they dont ask and youre not put on the spot. When someone is fishing for a date or a maybe-babysitter, though, I turn it right back around on them. Im self employed so I can realistically be working at any time and date. Youre right, adult people who feel safe and are treated well like adult people probably dont react like that. If youd rather not, I would love to immediately pretend this never happened and talk about dinosaurs for the next ten minutes, and then never bring it up again. Message Example #6: ( Note: A long message like this example is a better fit for dating sites like Match, OkCupid or POF. Although I do the opposite: Im ALWAYS busy/have to work, when certain people ask. But I have wondered if I answer with imaginary bf and I have x-plans, if the questions would stop. Oh, theyre going to the movies on Saturday? Going back to work? I dont know many people who issue we should hang out soon with the expectation that the recipient is then supposed to plan an event if they agree? Folding the dishes. The same is true for both indirect hinty inquiries like doing anything on the weekend? and direct invites like Are you available for X chore/ Y funthing Saturday between 2 and 5? Or noncommittal responses like dunno, maybe or definite responses like I will make time for a few specific fun things within specific timeframe, otherwise I am unavailable. None of these is universally rude; any/all can be considered presumptuous, pushy, passive, or otherwise inappropriate to specific circumstances or relationships (and fine/desirable for others), and any/all may result in added difficulty/danger if they are spoken to a person who has the ability to cause problems if displeased, and are not what that person wants to hear. Mentioning your actual plans is one. So nowadays Ill say something like Im probably going to do [X], but thats not urgent if you want to hang out instead! or I need to do [X] but I have time for a quick dinner if youre interested. (People who are not the boything get oh, Ive got laundry because theres almost nobody else Im willing to make same-day plans with. For an acquaintance, depends. I also get your daughter refusing to comply with requests that arent made with at least normal adult civility it was not even a request, in fact, but an order. Not much fun, but also not optional right now. (Aunt doesnt need to know whether your laundry has reached the point of not going to have clean clothes to wear or not.). You have attached a new question to an old thread. You could just ask. Sometimes its totally innocuous, as LW said. For small talk, I like to ask questions where the answer can be simple. You?, Or ask when do you need an answer by as invitors do need to know for catering, planning and booking purposes. In my case this is always 100% true because unless I literally have my calendar open in front of me I do not know what I am doing at literally any time on any day. I think Im just reacting to the comments that seem to me to have a Thats just the way it is, you have to deal vibe, partly because it seems to make sense that someone would write in for specific strategies of how to deal while getting as much of what they want and as little of what they dont want as possible. If a coworker does this several times in a row, I sense they dont want to connect with me on that level and stop asking. And I have to say, my, Toss her out and let her adult, is in flat contradiction to my frequent assertion that successful launching has been economically tough for young adults for some time now. I have a group of friends now whom I trust not to give me a hard time about the explicit choice to paint my toenails in front of Netflix instead of going out. I understand theyre looking for an ice breaker, but its not that interesting to talk about Ill probably get to laundry if Im not too lazy. I wish there was another common conversation starter among people you already know. It feels like they expect me to put in the majority of the effort, and it would be nice if once in a while instead of saying I dont see you enough they would say Would you be up for meeting up at the coffee shop on my town on Saturday if [their issues] allow? But its not something thats going to change, so I smile and nod at their noises and continue to plan things with them at exactly the rate I feel like doing so (including making extra effort if theyre going through a really tough thing). This way, you are always busy when those people ask. Brief excerpts (<250 words) may be shared with attribution & a link to the original post. If an invitation to something materializes at this reply, I have no problem saying No. morning (and then bending my ear the whole way up the road, when if we were alone Id be chatting to my kids, and we quite like that) to the point where the doorbell would go and my kids would be saying oh god no, not them again! and Im shushing them, but feel exactly the same way. Ive realized its very important for us. And I mean, its legit to decide that youre willing to pay the cost, that youre okay with people deciding that you are unsociable or unfriendly or rude. Sam sends Julia a text at 9 PM on Saturday night, with an idea that could give the company an edge in customer service's call hold times. Also I have learned to give hard noes. Because everybodys got something. Ive never found it made any difference at all for invitations its not like I told them how much time each activity Im doing will require or what other boring chores I will also be doing. . Since LW was talking about very short-term questions, I certainly hope no one is asking because they need to tell the caterer! The underlying assumption, is/. So with someone new, Did you do anything good last weekend? In ways that I doubt he even always notices. I would think that if one is up to the point of having to plan food, one would have also issued a direct invitation? But that was fun and consensual for both parties. Cause you dont have to find out if Im busy BEFORE inviting me to something or asking me for a favor. Oh my goodness I didnt even realize this was posted and then it took awhile for me to read through all of the responses. Example: What are you doing? Lead with the actual invitation. 2. . 7. Its a conversation starter, and its my choice whether I continue the conversation by answering or by reflecting it back at them. So if theyre just chatting youve invited them to talk about their own weekend, and if they are in fact leading up to an invitation, then youve been vague about whether nothing interesting means lots of chores, or free time. You can be annoyed by a wide variety of people forever. One of the costs of challenging social rules is that it makes it harder for people to learn them. @IndoorCatI appreciate your comments. These are my 2 best friends for over 20 years each! Mittens and I can primal scream together. Its real. I had a two-day conversation with my cat about vacuums versus lint rollers. Your feelings are your own and it sounds like What are you doing this weekend? has reached a point where hearing the question adds a ton of negativity to the interaction for you, which might be where this response is coming from? Would it be possible for you in [date]. - Joseph Addison - Middle age is when you're sitting at home on a Saturday night and the telephone rings and you hope it isn't for you. ooh. Is that the best you've got. Why do I feel entitled to some assistance or attention from the 24-year-old who lives in my home, taking up space, who pays nothing and does no chores (because shes too unreliable, and Id just be nagging at her, or doing them for her and pissing her off)? My mom recently moved from but why? to Ok, I guess you dont love me which is actually a sign things are going my way because its not a direct question. But no one argues against working! Im also self employed and use a similar excuse. Trust issues and controlling family? 3. If you're taking a vacation and staying home, your clients or coworkers may still expect you to pop into the office and answer their emails. So the correct answer is, "I'm hanging out with you." Most of the time, that's the right answer. In that case, if they have already said theyre free, they might feel trapped into saying yes; I know I would. Question bugs me too, so I figured out some noncommittal answers that hit the tennis ball back into the askers court where it belongs. I wanted to stayyou can make why do you ask? be a friendly lineand you probably should. Funny Responses to "What Are You Doing?" What does it look like I'm doing? That said, you do have to be ok with saying no. Something like this happens every single time. My cousins with kids are trying to push their 8-12 year olds on me to tutor them and Im like 1. If it makes you feel better, I did not compare you to my father. It avoids (in their mind) making the person feel pressured to commit if they dont actually want to. No, it had just been earlier that very day. My range is from fine, thanks, and you to tired but otherwise good to a real answer but nothing too dark or detailed. Most of them, anyway. Its great that you can come!. Life is filled with lots of required thing that some folks loathe and others either like or dont care either way. "I'm having a productive day.". I guess I run with a very specific social crowd and it hasnt occurred to me in a while that its not always doable to say Im going to do CRAFTS ALONE, its going to be awesome. But I used to be in a grad program where people were super competitive, and if I said oh my god Im going to stay in this weekend, Im so peopled-out people would be lowkey mean about how I wasnt networking/studying/running charity marathons enough. I will probably just need some time to unwind, perhaps to watch the Winter Olympics with my cat.. Id be open to a one-on-one hangout but just out of energy for any group thing, if thats why youre asking laundryall the laundry. For the record, I will totally cat-sit for you. But if someone says what are you doing tomorrow night and I say painting my toenails in front of Netflix, that leaves me without a graceful out. Flying in a rocket ship. You on the other hand, will get off the phone feeling charged and energized.and get right back to doing nothing. But the female-seeming among us get hit with that kind of weirdly-broken thinking by our families and others endlessly in American and other western cultures. I hear you. Instead, choose from these five replies. With new acquaintances, well often exchange We should hang out/get a drink/whatever sometime!s multiple times over a period of a few weeks or months before one of us says, Hey, Im going to Event on Friday, do you want to come? Its an intermediary step between I just met you and Lets hang out one-on-one at my request.. Ive had good luck with, Fantastic! because no matter what is happening to me, I am still fantastic in various ways. (FWIW, Im not that extreme myself. Funny Responses To What Are You Doing Actively waiting for my problems to go away. Others also have lives to plan and need to know (cancel event, find someone else, make other plans). Person B: Oh, fine, thanks. Any request for someones time, regardless of the setting of the fun variable in your mind. Wake up late Sunday morning and go ride or play in the mud. In the age of smartphones I also often find that my calendar is inside the device Im holding up to my ear In theory I could ask them to pause the conversation while I check the calendar, but I havent yet found a script to actually get them to stop talking while I do that. eh, my mother does that. Are you willing? or, if Im feeling that Im entitled to demand it, Ill say, are you available? (example: Im not going to react well if you want to play Minecraft instead of helping me wrap the favors for grandpas birthday dinner; if youre getting together with friends, online or IRL, or doing homework, OK). How do I know if my comment was lost or is just stuck in a mod queue? Funny Bumble Answers #3: Rebel Without A Cause This answer is funny because it paints a picture in the woman's mind of a rebel, even in his youth. I understand the concept, but it seems to me that getting an invitation after revealing that you were nominally free at that time would make refusal even harder, not easier. Although it can be asked in the ways LW talks about too, usually for me it is just a way of sharing life with friends and doesnt have much motivation beyond that. You're confident and independent, but you still overthink this kind of stuff. Especially since shes not working during the dayshe only HAS leisure time.). Nowadays I usually use The Captains great script: I do not know yet, I have to check my calendar. or are you busy?). I dont have strong preferences but I do get hangry, so Ive learned to step up and be the Designated Control Freak. Instead we got stuck attending an MLM pitch. To contact our editors please use our contact form. More words, people, not less. Humor is one of the best ways to respond to being asked out, as long as it's well-received. 4) "When asked what I did over the weekend, I reply, 'Why, what did you hear?'" 5) And it's weekend memes baby!!! Every weekend! If the reason for you that you daughter should help you at X time with X thing is because family, is the reverse also true? Id like to get you to take out the trash.), There *is* a certain amount of call on her time that I -do- feel entitled to (she lives in my home, not hers; shes a member of my family). I also like the advice to just tell people I interact with regularly that I dont like that question. Or, if I tell a potential date some generic things (oh, probably reading and writing a lot) and add that Id like to take a break so they know Im open, Im engaging in the same coy behavior thats bothering me in the first place. *Him: Hello, how are you? It always makes me a little uncomfortable, because Im not used to grocery store cashiers asking me how I am. As a young black woman in the US, she of course had been steeped in spotting such people her whole life. Be here at 6.. The second part of this is being okay evaluating the specific invitations and turning them down if you dont want to do them. I know theyre just trying to be friendly but it gets exhausting that starting Wednesday I have to deal with so what are you up to this weekend and then AGAIN on Monday what did you do this weekend? (So I guess Tuesday is the only day safe from that question, ha.
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