At a dinner party the other night the person sitting next to me asked how I knew our hostess, Lisa. I told her that I refused to answer on the grounds that Lisa and I had known each other for 15 years and there was no possible answer that would be interesting or significant against that background of friendship.
A dispute ensued over whether or not asking “How do you know X?” is a lame conversation-stalling question and this dispute came up again at a dinner the next night. I stuck to my guns that there was nothing I could have said that anyone at the party would have cared to hear. Jin’s idea for a response that would pique folks’ interest, despite the intervening decades: “We were college roommates, back when she was a man.”
(For the curious: Lisa was friends with one of my friends from MIT and we would often see each other at his house. Subsequently we’ve both lived in and around Cambridge. Glad you asked?)
When I saw the title “How do you know X?” I thought it would be about how people can’t tell whether they know or don’t know some skill X. (see Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments). Like physics. Do you know physics? But no, the title fooled me.
I get what you are saying and essentially agree with it but it seems like a battle not worth fighting. It’s probably tougher to explain your position than it is to just say “Lisa was friends with one of my friends from MIT and we would often see each other at his house.”
If you are trying to save yourself some trouble, I think you are barking up the wrong tree. If you are trying to do your part to discourage “how do you know x?” on a macro level, I guess you might be doing that.
I thought this would be a post about Unix-y X.
I dunno. I’m not a big fan of lame conversation starters myself, but then you get those awkward moments.. Then where do you turn? Ok, you could let the silence hang and leave both of you in unspoken embarrassment. But I’ve found in general that there’s no point in doing that; it doesn’t help the friendship, it doesn’t make you feel like you had a great chat, it doesn’t really build character in any way I can think of. If you can’t think of anything really intensely clever to say, why shouldn’t you be allowed to say something not-so-clever? And, more often than not, saying _something_ (just anything) is more likely to lead to a cool conversation than saying _nothing_ (not even something lame).
If you can’t have a lame conversation with some frequency how do you get to the good ones?
It is your peculiar gift to write short provocative essays which get people thinking. If you carry this over to your conversations then you are probably a very good converstation starter.
There are many people who lack this sort of verbal quickness who nevertheless have something to contribute. Exercise patience. Answer the question.
If you were at my house for dinner and said something similar to one of my friends I would think you rude.
It is your peculiar gift to write short provocative essays which get people thinking. If you carry this over to your conversations then you are probably a very good converstation starter.
There are many people who lack this sort of verbal quickness who nevertheless have something to contribute. Exercise patience. Answer the question.
If you were at my house for dinner and said something similar to one of my friends I would think you rude.
I think you are mentally mis-translating the question intto “How did you meet X,” which isn’t what’s being asked. The real question is “What is your rank and status in the social Web here, and are you romantically linked to anyone in the room?” You are correct that it is not a good conversation-starter: it isn’t intended to be one.
In the case of Lisa, “We’ve been platonic friends for over 15 years” would answer the question a little too completely.
In my post: “into” has only one “t”, and “web,” here used as a synonym for “network,” should not have been capitalized
Whether K’s postulation, “I think you are mentally mis-translating the question,” does or does not not sum-up things succintly, it seems close to the best explanation of the phenomena… At least relative to what I’ve read so far… And, of course, as Jung would assert, the use of the term “you” really means “all of us,” as opposed to any particular individual… That is to say, who among us (while holding up our individualized end of the collective consciousness), has not participated in this type of social, but still self-titalating, voyueristic (sp?) fishing expedition?… Or, put another way, although we may have used different words at different times and places, who among us has not asked the same question of those we like, enjoy, perhaps even (secretly?) love, or just plain desire?.. Tacky as the question may be, please tell me: have we not ALL wanted to know such things at one time or another? Which of course begs the Ultimate Question: Why?; or (it’s evil twin?), Why not?
Saying, “I have known her a long time and don’t really remember, but it must have been from college; how do you know her?” both answers the question with sufficient detail if it is an innocent question without revealing anything to any trolls or social climbers; and at the same time, is a fair question to ask in return… an innocent person will take no offence, while the social climber will have been put on notice that you are wise to their game.
I’ve found that questions of epistemology don’t work well at dinner parties. As chick pickup lines they’re not bad, but the target chick has to have an IQ of 160 or better.
Whats the matter with you? The person was just making conversation. How rude. Sometimes, your too smart for your own good pal. Have some MANNERS. Whats the matter with you?
Answering “Lisa and I had known each other for 15 years” is already a partial answer to the question. I’m not sure I understand what’s to be gained by refusing to give the rest of the answer.
The question might be a lame opener that doesn’t easily allow for an exhaustive answer that describes the depth of your particular relationship, but it’s just an opener. If you feel it can’t be answered briefly, answer at whatever length you think it deserves.
Asking how two people know each other often gives you an idea of their shared interests, or tells you who their shared acquaintances are (and perhaps you know them). Either way, there’s a new way to take a conversation. Your refusal to answer moved the conversation too, no denying that (it probably made people more curious than before); but there’s nothing lame about the original question.
I think K’s on to something. Think of it as a pre-technological friendster. A: How did you meet Lisa? B: In Mathematics 304: The mathematics of oragami. A: That’s Marvelous, I studied Japanese at Oxford B: How interesting … Blah Blah Blah…
Sometimes one might even get an interesting anecdote out of it. It also has the potential to uncover more information about both Lisa and B and, to twist your example, to provide potentially blunder-averting meta-information… i.e. You’ve both been around long enough to know that Lisa used to be a man.
I agree it is a lame. But what’s better? We need a question we can rely on in nerve-wracking conversation-dead cocktail party moments?
My mum suggests: ‘What’s your big enthusiasm at the moment?’ In theory it’s good – it gets someone talking about what they want to talk about but in practice it often seems too intimate (my mum delivers it with such aplomb she gets away with it).
Any better ideas?
Now how do you know that ‘there was no possible answer that would be interesting or significant against that background of friendship’ or ‘there was nothing I could have said that anyone at the party would have cared to hear’? Who knows what others are thinking and would find interesting? I know there have been many times when conversations that appeared doomed to be uninteresting turned out to be quite the opposite.
It’s not supposed to be an interesting question. It’s up to you to make the response interesting. Use Jin’s answer. Lie if you have to. Whiner!
What a hilarious answer. I’d like to use that at a wedding sometime.
What a hilarious answer. I’d like to use that at a wedding sometime.