Oh, sorry, I cant., What are you doing Thursday night? Thats the way to go. (Women with STEM doctorates especially get constant streamers of this kind of contempt from their families.). For grocery store cashiers, I keep the answer short: Wet, on a rainy day, or Need more coffee this one particularly for coffee shop baristas, who probably hear it too often. But it needs to be a set rent, that can be codified and set down in a form you could use with any other adult, should the fancy take you. There are also times my kid can ask for help, and *I* dont get to say, eh, no, Id rather read a book. Not if I want to consider myself her family. Nothing obviously inappropriate has happened, I dont think I need to talk to his supervisor (I dont want him fired, it would just be nice if hed back off on his own, but IDK if that will happen, or maybe he will transfer or change hours (I thought he had for a few months last year when I did not see him at all)). So the onus is on you, when talking to a new person, to communicate that youre just interested in exchanging chitchat about what everybody did/will do over the weekend. Also I have learned to give hard noes. )/co-workers, who usually uses the So what are you doing this weekend? as an opener to telling me all the awesome stuff theyve planned for themself for the weekend. Mother likes to trap me. If they play extra coy with me, Ill just be extra cryptic in return. I suppose its more of an emotional labor thing? Theyre couched as requests, and a truly good reason would be all the excuse we would need. I think it would be odd to preemptively take that away. Nanani, that is absolutely true. Saying no at that point feels rude, and yeah some people have reacted badly. OK, you want to ASK if hell help you w/ your home maintenance, fine, but these are not HIS chores anymore. Those of us who are white have a hard time grasping the sheer weirdness that tends to go into this stuff. If the other person isnt in a chatty mood, we go comfortably silent after a few pleasantries because the Small Talk Gods have been appeased. If its something Im keen on, the answer is, Woot! As a little anecdote my ex-husband and I had just started attending a new ward in his church when a guy our age wed chatted with a few times asked us what we were doing on Halloween. (Seriously? If I always have to be the one reaching out, that can feel either like the emotional and planning labor are being taken for granted, or like they dont actually care whether they see me. Person B: Oh, fine, thanks. Even though Ive done the layering myself, I dont usually hear it as an attempt to give me all possible puts. Just how I like it :). Later that evening I find out through facebook that HE went out ice skating, with several of our friends, and he had never even mentioned to me that he was going, let alone asked if I wanted to come too! It can be a white lie! Like, if you say you have nothing really planned, and you get asked to babysit or on a date, are you actually okay saying Sorry, cant this time? ), You can also be very vague, but leave the door open for follow-up if you want to share. And if I do want to see her, then I just tell her something freed up in my schedule and ask if shes available or if theres anything she wants to do. If someone just using what are you doing on __ as a casual opening to issue an invite, it gives them the opening they need. As such, I like to preface it with taking care of some stuff. Just kind of wanting to converse by text or something. I think it would be helpful for folks to give LW the benefit of the doubt that she/he is not taking the time to write in to an advice column over very simple coworker small talk questions. What to Say: "Thank you, I had a great weekend.". See also: people who wont pick a restaurant, when the answer to every question is whatever you want.***. It doesnt mean Im not an interesting person or my life is less meaningful if Im selective about who I share the details of my life with. Do you know the meaning of the weekend? IMO the correct answer to we should get lunch some time or lets hang out is actually sure, Saturdays are generally good for me or Ive been meaning to see Black Panther. Sometimes I feel like this is just another Hi, how are you? kind of question that can be sort of skipped over. Based on your listed interests, it looks like we have a lot in common. Boy, do I need it. Seriously, both she and my sister are true extroverts, bless them, which is why I use the term hyper-social weirdos to describe them. Its the same here. Thursday is awful for me rushing all day invites the questioner to drop the topic, and Nothing, how about you invites the questioner to ask you to the fun thing. (Like the How are you? inquiries) Although I do the opposite: Im ALWAYS busy/have to work, when certain people ask. Its okay that I usually spend my weekends watching movies/playing videogames/reading and those arent shameful hobbies. Thats a way it can work, certainly, but why is it magically guess the exact time theyre free and what they want to do with no input if the person who first said lets hang out is then suggesting a time or activity, but something other than magically guessing if the person who first said lets hang out and is told yeah, we should is the one saying Saturdays are good for me, how about you? or Ive been meaning to see Black Panther? Your radishes that you consider joint family radishes because everyone could eat them? I know people who mean well dont like hearing this, but I think that its important for people who mean well to also consider how the people they interact with might feel, so I consider this type of information to be useful to anyone who truly wants others to feel welcomed and comfortable. Also Go ahead and get your friends to hate me and think Im mean, if its ever helpful to you. 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! Itd be a big help, but if not I could find someone else. Which is a lot of caveats! Me: Nope. Yeah, I ask this of people because Im making conversation! What the letter-writer is doing seems a bit like foreign people not grasping at first that Americans dont expect How are you? to be answered literally. If you have never phrased commands to her that way, yup, thats on her. Of course both people will vary from the scripts with personal style and the situation, but that is the general way it can go. Great, Thanks for Asking. Thats not cool.. I have some friends who are really passive about planning things and it drives me insane I have started actively responding what did you have in mind? and batting back all their attempts to make me plan the night. , Related the person who just assumes youre doing whatever theyve planned for you because its a family thing and youre family or I asked Z and they said you were free* or What else would you be doing? 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. Btw, the annoyed reaction at go to the airport and the misunderstanding re: grandma could be exactly because she is used to you making decisions for her and expecting her to follow through. Yep, my wife and I too. OMG yes! Open your mouth and close your eyes andhold on, it got away., (1) Want to have dinner sometime? It generally meant that they had read somewhere on some really stupid website that you should try to get the girl you want to talk about herself, because girls like to talk about themselves. Lets just say there were a few comments along the lines of look, if this Pampered Chef isnt your personal yaoi cup of tea, thats fine, but do you have to be so judgy about what your friends into?, Exactly! He doesnt need to be that nosy about how you spend your time. Whereas a lot of us see the advantages, like the precision you noticed, to some form of rapid written communication that wasnt around decades ago. !" Oh you want to invite me to happy hour [with a bunch of colleagues I hate when theyre sober let alone when theyre drunk]? I dont feeling hes hitting on me exactly, though I am not answering in a way he likes/expects (am I supposed to be chatty bc Im young-ish and female? Is everyone busy? It can be all consuming, leaving no time for askers invitations or request, or totally flexible and cancellable if there is something you would like to do. A professor I studied under said she, without thinking about it, had an automatic habit of spotting people likely to do that oh Im so nice to your differentness type of racism and trying to run interference to keep them from saying that crap around her grad students. If its just a soft open to an invitation, you can be annoyed by it, or you can say, I dunno, you?. 1. I miss you though, can we plan dinner soon? And I have a date Saturday, but I would love to get a phone call-catchup on the calendar if youre freemaybe Sunday afternoon? (These examples are all people I want to spend time with I also use a lot of swamped this weekend! So when I get a what are you doing after work Friday? text halfway through work on Thursday just tell me what youre going to suggest in the same message. :) Hope you like our compilation and try to stay serious ,please . It almost feels like if they just sneak up on me with some super fun plans I might say yes more often. in a family meeting you decide that father empties the dishwasher, daughter cooks on weekdays, mother cooks on weekends or whatever) which also lets her develope that skills. Texting gives you some time to think of clever or funny responses. Shampooing the grass. I too wish I had the strength & Phoebe confidence to pull of that line. Setting that aside for the moment, its apparently *supposed* to go like this: I honestly dont even know why people say it at all when Ive never seen a follow-up to it. My nightmare would be something like this: Them: My 6 year old daughter and her class are putting together a full rundown of the classic opera La Traviata in the original Italian and itll end at 11PM on a weekday. MY plans!) If its not something Im into, I feel pressure to say yes because she knows Im not busy. Maybe actually I am just dealing with one of those people who force you to be blunt. Can we not with passing judgement on the validity of the LWs feelings about this phrase? IDK. It means people will help you less, go out of their way for you less, give you poorer recommendations for your next job, and on and on. LW has a LOT of reason to be bugged by this approach to seeking a date it carries a hefty implied threat because of what abusive men in our society have built it into en masse. Early on in dating the boything, he would ask what I was doing that night in a way that made me think it was small talkso Id say oh, Im working on [project] probably, or I might just have an early night. And then he would assume I wasnt free, whereas if he would have said hey do you want to have dinner? I would have been on board. Soft invites in my friend circle are more just a mutually understood shorthand for I value your friendship so Im going to express a genuine desire to hang out even were both depressed and introverted and therefore the likelihood of this actually happening is pretty low.. My MIL does thatshe asks DH if we can come to dinner, and he says, Ill have to ask Toots. Then she calls me and asks me, and I say, I have to ask DH. Really early on, she did this, and then laughed at my answer and said, I asked him, and he said he had to ask you. Theres always some kind of obligation, because theyre my parents and I love them and I want to honor what theyve done for me in giving me a great life. (Seriously? Rock the anger, LW. Part of it for me, too, is that a lot of my free time is devoted to managing my anxiety and physical issues (that I dont talk about at work) and I feel pressured to always have a good weekend. You would think, right? that sounds fun! But then she would ask me to babysit her toddler. 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. Some other commenters have pointed out that sometimes people use this question as an conversation opener or in order to seem polite while they actually want to tell about their own plans. (Im a lady dating ladies btw, if thats relevant, though I have also dated men before and my experience is definitely colored by some of the emotional labor / potential gender-related danger issues some of the commenters pointed out thats spot on).
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