Comic Strips

Aw that's kinda mean. You can learn a lot about someone from why they took a trip like that. Was she checking out art museums? Or the summer festivals? Or shopping? Or visiting relatives? Did she have to save up to go, or was she using daddy's credit card? etc.

She likes to drink wine and watch movies, too!

If you ask me to tell you about me, and follow up with "what else?" then this is going to be a short date.

Usually when I meet people who say they travelled to Europe ... I'll ask them a million questions about what they did there, what they saw, what they thought about it, the food, the weather, the people ... which places did they go? what are your recommendations? what did you like? what did you not like? any weird things that happened? any great things that happened?

It's usually a source of a ton of information.

Hell of a lot better conversation starter than to ask the person what they've done in the small town you've both lived in all your lives and know every single detail about.

See, that's not how to hold a conversation.

The essence to holding a conversation is to show interest in the topic. There are two ways this is done:

1. If you have familiarity (whether vague or intimate) with the topic, engage in it and share your own views and experiences.

2. If you have no fucking idea on the topic, then ask the other person to teach you about it.

Bonus: If you are a guy and you are looking to get lucky, whatever topic the young lady/gentlemen/non-binary broaches should become the ABSOLUTE MOST interesting thing in the world to you.

"What else?" is such a hostile way to engage in small talk. Yeah okay so somebody responded with a bit of a vague answer, but "tell me about yourself" is hardly a specific question.

This is just normal small talk openers; they don't really get you anywhere, but they open a dialogue and you can both work to keep the conversation in the air from there.

For the asker in this situation, I would have tried following up by asking "oh cool, where did you go?", which might have advanced the conversation and potentially led to a more specific conversation about one particular place or experience.

If I was answering this question, I'd struggle. I'd probably try to avoid answering with my job, so I'd probably pause (which is totally allowed in conversation), and honestly I think I'd ask what they wanted to know - because I find the question too vague. If I absolutely HAD to answer, though, it depends on a couple of bits of context. Firstly, who is asking? What's my relationship to them? Secondly, where are we?

If they're somebody I've just met at a pub, I'd give a wider answer that opens up responses, like "well, I'm big into music - I play a lot of guitar and bass, and I'm actually on the lookout for some new artists to check out -- are you listening to anything this week?"

I know it's a vague answer and might even come off deflective, but it's a hard question to answer and really I want to move off of speaking in vagueries as soon as possible when I'm talking to people because I find it boring.

I'm curious about and interested in people, and don't find it hard to be invested in things people tell me, but when you stick on the very very surface level and non-specific details like "I like music" or "I like food" or "I like travelling", it's sort of difficult to find anything to latch on to without digging deeper to specifics.

Not that I'm gifted socially, I'm not saying that (and in actuality I find socialising pretty nerve-wracking and uncomfortable a lot of the time, you might be able to tell lol), I'm just thinking through what I would do and have done in these situations. Also yes yes this comic is a joke obviously etc., this is more of a response to the comments.

Hey, literally everyone in these comments, stop it, it’s just a joke.

"Ok tell me about YOU then. Is your whole personality asking people if that is their whole personality?"

sweating

I travel in Europe daily!

Though i live in Europe, it would be pretty hard to not travel at all

Me: "You can afford to travel?! You must be incredibly well off!"

Millionaire: 😰

And at that moment Sharon realized she was pretty happy with her life as is. And left to go enjoy the happiest life without being questioned.

A few years later Stan took his life because of male depression.

I'm pretty much like that. My memory works from the generic towards the details, and has trouble recalling them without a way of getting there.

I have a great amount of interesting stories to tell, but when people prompt me for examples I often blank and give general answers like these. That's often taken as that I don't have anything interesting to share (or don't want to), but if you ask me follow up questions I'll recall more and more and make connections to other topics.

A friend of mine is the opposite, they can say "I'll have to tell you about my weekend..." and then talk 5 minutes nonstop, whereas with me it's more like a constant stream of exchanging thoughts back and forth.

In my experience, people of both conversation styles usually tend to stay among their own and don't mingle a lot, because it can be hard to combine them. But it's like most differences, it can be made work by exposure and mutual respect.

I've personally been to Occupied Palestine for a couple of months :3

So what if it is? Is his whole personality to be a judgemental prick? If you are in a conversation you find boring and this is the best you can do to try to move on, you probably are, no matter how right you are.

I get the point of the comic, and partially agree with it, but asking someone about themselves is so many different directions rolled into a ball of vectors that gets pressed out on a piece of paper and you're expecting to one, get something coherent, and two, understand it... which is insane.

Let people talk about things however they get started, then roll onward from there.

My biography looks so amazing if, instead of saying "I immigrated to the US", I say "I'm currently on my 180th month of my vacation in the US".

So I see where this post is coming from. Many people use travel as a sort of status symbol or don't actually learn anything about the places they go to and are simply there for personal enjoyment. It can be superficial.

But that's ok. I think the douchebag here is the person questioning the value in travel (likely assuming this woman took a superficial approach). That's not fair, people should be given the benefit of the doubt. For all we know she may have connected to her heritage and learned some key life lessons.

In this case if the person is of Europoid heritage (sometimes referred to as European) it might be a good opportunity to learn more about why they travelled and where they may originally be from.

Glass houses.

Travel, wine, camping, equestrian. At least one of those are on every Tinder/Bumble bio in my area where they’ve bothered to put anything past a photo and Instagram handle.