I’m staying at a hostel and saw a lady, new guest bored sitting on the table playing chess alone.
I asked her the question of how she’s doing today and where she is from. Her first reaction was a sigh, and then she was trying to shame me in front of other guests, that she got tired of these boring standard questions and that I could ask so many more interresting questions.
I was kinda flabbergasted by her reaction. I told her that I can understand her but that the reason behind these standard questions is to create some comfort and background info since I just met her.
I apologized to her that my question offended her and started to ask questions about her trip. Then she replied: Another standard question I won’t gonna answer.
To be honest since then I became less social, simply because I don’t know what a safe -not boring- question is or not.
43 comments
NEVER apologize to rude people, as soon as that smart ass reply comes out of her mouth, ignore her.
She is the one that needs to visit this sub in this case, not you. You asked a perfectly good warmup question and then tried to follow up. Don’t sweat this, she was just mean.
Edited to add: And I say this as a woman, by the way, since I see comments turning this situation into an “expectations of women” debate. A grown, mature person does not make passive aggressive statements and expect other people to read their mind, no matter the genders involved. She could have told you directly that she did not want to have a conversation, yet she chose to try and denigrate you in a public, social space. She was a jerk, and is not worth taking up one more iota of your concern or worry.
There is nothing you can do here. That response you received from her was straight up rude and quite negative. Sounds like a her problem.
She wants to hear the following question: would you rather fuck half man bottom half fish top or vice versa? #highschoolmentality
Not your fault that u acted like a normal human being, screw her
In my opinion she’s being a bit thoughtless with that. Normally it’s a bad idea to go up to strangers and start asking them “interesting questions” since you’re gonna come off as rude in most cases. Personally if she can’t handle a bit of small talk to get the ball rolling then I wouldn’t bother.
Who knows what she really wanted to talk about? Maybe she wanted you to start flirting with her like they do in movies? Acting all mysterious and shit? Lol
You did nothing wrong. At least now you know why she was playing chess alone. If she held up a mirror she would probably have a problem with that person too
She shouldn’t stay at a hostel if those are questions beneath her. Those are actually common questions to ask at a hostel and rightfully so.
Here’s an interesting question for her: if we threw a boomerang out the hostel window at a speed of 35miles/hr at the time 7:30am, and then it spun back and returned, how far up her ass would it be?
I think she expected Chris Hemsworth to talk to her.
She’s just an asshole. So what were her amazing and interesting questions to you?
This is on her, not you. After her rude remark I would have just turned and walked away.
“Would you rather have Donald Trump cum on your face, or Joe Biden shit on your face?”
I doubt she’s been asked that before!
She sound like an INTJ to me😂 Good question would be(you said she played chess alone)
What do you like so much about chess that you play in on your own?
What you need to do is learn to read signals. She wanted to be left alone. She told you once, and you continued. You are not entitled to people’s attention just because they are alone.
…
“Anyway, how is your sex life?”
One of the best social skills you can learn is that not everything is a you problem. You did nothing wrong. That person is simply rude and probably treats everyone else this way. Ignore them and move on.
Sounds like an extremely boring person who is trying to create the illusion she is fascinating by being an asshole. This is classic and infuriating. She is quite literally taking the playbook from a teenage edgelord but she’s an adult who is in a foreign country and has the opportunity to make interesting friends. I can see why you apologized because her behavior is so strange but just know she’s the one at fault and you truly don’t need to change your behavior because of this.
Ever think there was a reason she was playing chess alone? Perhaps she is just a disagreeable person who no one likes because of her poor attitude and condescending manner. Why were you compelled to apologize for just trying to be friendly?
Be a snarky smartass back. Smalltalk is a necessary dance regardless of language or culture.
She sounds like someone who’s burnout. There are still nicer polite ways to say not interested or not today
” So did you get abused as a kid? ”
“How old were you when you lost your virginity?”
A try-hard “I’m not that kind of girl.” type. Not worth the effort.
And that is why i don’t speak to people and never will 🙂
If I were in your shoe, I would say. “Oh really? Then what’s an interesting question?”
If she plays along, you’ll automatically have an interesting conversation from there.
If she can’t think of one and asks you back, putting the ball in your court, then try as best as you can to think of something, if you can sense she seems somewhat invested in the conversation.
If she dismisses you again, and says something like “that’s for you to come up with” or “that’s another standard question” then I’d respond with “You don’t seem to be the most sociable person, I’ll leave you to yourself then.” Basically making it seem like she’s the one lacking social skills and the boring person, not you. Maybe that’ll even cause her to be the one making a post on r/socialskills instead ;P. Only do this when you can sense she is clearly being rude and dismissive, sensing she is not interested at all in the conversation. (Don’t do this based on those phrases specifically, she may say that, but is still interested in talking to you, if so, go to the second option.)
Interesting conversations, or conversations in general, are a team effort, you cannot create it yourself on your own. Someone has to be playing along. As long as you do your part, then you’re not the one with bad social skills if the other person doesn’t. That just means the other person is either not interested, or that he/she is bad at social skills.
But you must be able to set it up, so that the other person has something they can play with. I do not know the context you two were in, how her non-verbal ques were. Maybe she was attempting to do just that with you, trying to set up the conversation for you, so that you can play along and lead it to become a more interesting conversation, but you were simply unable to do so because you were unable to see that she was attempting just that. Or maybe she was just being rude and uninterested. If that were the case, I doubt she’d even respond with that in the first place. She’d probably just ask you kindly, or rudely, to leave her be.
In my perspective, from this post, it does seem like she was trying to set it up for you, so that you had the opportunity to lead it down an interesting path.
I never understood these kind of people. What do you want, that I would ask you first thing about the meaning of life? Or that I would start dissecting Iliad?
While she was rude, what I think people are missing here is she was probably playing alone because she didn’t want to talk to anyone. And those nothing-smalltalk questions can be like nails on a chalkboard when you trying to do something by yourself.
You know how many times I’ve been asked “what are you reading” while reading? I don’t understand why people think I want to be interrupted to tell you the title of the book that is plainly visible on the cover. But at least a conversation *could* be built off of that. (Oh it’s ____, what’s it about? It’s about ____. Oh I love sci fi, have you read ____?)
If someone approached me and said “how are you” the answer is “well I was fine but now I’m annoyed and want to get back to my book.” I’m not blunt enough to say that though. And generally just wait for the conversation to fizzle out on its own which happens pretty quickly, because the person who started the conversation never has a plan.
I think she needs help she need someone to understand her problem there’s always something behind this type of person maybe and you never know whats she’s going through so sometimes it’s better to keep quiet on a rude behavior to make people realise and sometimes it’s good to sit down and ask them to share if they want to. Maybe all he/she wanted is someone to speak or share.
I can vaguely understand her frustration, vaguely. I’ve mainly traveled solo & in hostels, and there is a monotony of getting to know others, but she generally needs to realize you haven’t been there the past 30 times she’s been asked about her day. This is not something you did wrong. You’re not all these other people, you’re you 🙂 I have found really wonderful conversations when I have dinner with folks on trips. Or sometimes people will join my plans, or I’ll join theirs, other solo travellers often like to do that. I don’t think I need to give advice on how to have better questions. When you come down through the kitchen area and talk to someone, you’re not immediately going to ask about morality or something.
Try to find something details in activities of your interest person and develop conversation in mind, after that you can start it. Usually need one word
You must have talked to Sherlock Holmes to have been responded that way lmao. I can guarantee most interactions aren’t like that. She is an exception, not the rule.
In case you encounter someone playing chess alone ever again, ask her, “what is wrong with you miss ma’am?” That should be interesting enough to open a can of worms.
While she has a point, the standard “where are you from, where have you been, how long are you here, where are you going next” will be asked and answered hundreds of times over your travels it’s just…a necessarily evil. It’d be like going to a sports bar on the weekend and not asking the guy next to you who his team is. With the travel questions the goal is to get off them as soon as possible because something clicks in the conversation or between personalities and then you can *really* get to know someone. But no shame in ever asking and it’s a way to start getting to know someone.
That being said she’s just an annoying person not worth trying to ingratiate yourself to. If she wants more interesting conversation she can bring it to the table. Write her off and don’t think it reflects poorly on you.
Like other comments have said, her being rude isn’t your problem. But to answer your question:
The only thing I can think of is that she’s exhausted from hearing these questions framed the same way. Like you noticed she was playing chess alone and could have combined that with “how are you doing today?” to make something like “I hope the rest of your day was more thrilling than playing chess by yourself.” Or simply offer a game before getting into things like asking her name and going from there. Or start with some humor like, “so who’s winning.”
Your post has definitely made me aware that pattern recognition will probably work against cookie cutter questions. The age old: *It’s not what you say it’s how you say it* is probably the way to avoid that and potentially prompt a bit more engagement.
bruh 💀 whys she tryna act like a cara deliveign wannabe lol
She was being a b*tch. If this happens again, next time please don’t apologise.
Wait wait, so you did **not** ask her about chess? In this particular case that was the obvious thing to talk about.
In general though, don’t recite from a script of icebreaker questions, ask the person something about them; like if they have a band/show/whatever somewhere on their clothing you can ask about that. These days I often ask new people what’s a quarantine activity that’s stayed with them.
Sounds like she’s just a real see you next Tuesday. You don’t need that negativity.
Ugh this question is so boring and standard. Why don’t you try asking something unique for once. Jeez /s
So I can safely assume that you are here for the social skills workshop?..
honestly, to me, it seems like something might have happened to her recently.
Maybe this isn’t something you’re comfortable with but I might say something like ” Hey didn’t mean to step on any toes, I’m not sure if something else happened to upset you, but if you’d like to vent to a stranger with no judgments I’m open, otherwise ill leave you to your chess match, enjoy your trip”
I feel like if I was on a trip and I had an argument or falling out with friends I might just go to a common area alone, This person could have a short temper and be a little on edge/frustrated.
she just grumpy. don’t let it bother you. you’d be best to call out the truth which likley would me not apologizing and instead asking why she’s annoyed by friendly chit chat.
Honestly she sounds like a bitch – in the future when someone tries too be cool by being edgy while being rude, just shrug and say “ok then”
She could of answered and found out that you next question was something really interesting about her homeland – but her loss
I know some people that detest small talk, and i always find it awkward as frock talking to them because small talk openers are a basic social lubricant. Regardless, her approach is rude as hell and she’s the one lacking in social skills here, not you.
I don’t blame her. Those questions really don’t give you background on the person like you think they would. Me and 1 million other people can be from the same place but we’re not the same. I actually hate questions like that as well. You can start a conversation with an observation you have about them or the shared experience you guys are in (in that case, the hostel). Then go from there. Basic questions like that are excruciating to answer because it doesn’t get to anything about me as an individual. If you start a conversation with your thoughts then at least they know from that opening a little something about your opinions/the way you view the world which is a much better jumping point to build rapport.
You probably caught a Nerurodivergent on a bad day.
When this happens I go to one question that almost never fails me:
When was the last time you cried ?
& Why ?
In this particular instance I would have said :
Has anything on this trip made you cry yet ? It doesn’t have to be limited to a sad cry.
I personally hate when people say “How are you?” instead of saying “Hello” because they don’t want to know how I am, they want me to say “fine” even if I’m dy*ng inside.