Don't Ask

A friend called me the C-word last night. No, not 'conversational' in a reckless gambit to make me believe I'm witty, nor 'conscientious,' in some euphemistic slur on my precise salad-forking tendencies, but complex. A few weeks ago, when I was still young and naive and had an Internet dating profile up on Match, it did say 'complex' in the profile. But I didn't mean it. It even said I wasn't, right next to it, to clarify. It was only in there to scare off any witless chuckleheads who might have problems with a date who has held season tickets to minor league hockey and the symphony in the same season.

The dullards, in other words, one of which my friend assuredly is not. So what he was commenting on was not some assortment of trivial interests or activities that would seem irreconcilable to a lesser man, but rather something about my personality or emotional life. I would know more about the comment, and its basis and subtext and metatext and and implications, except that I didn't ask him to elaborate, and I don't even remember what I said that elicited this remark.

That is because I don't ask questions. This is a failing and a strength. It is a great strength when dating mobsters, for example, and it can keep a marriage going long after a spouse's infidelity would have crushed the union for a more inquisitive type. It protects one from needing to engage in all manner of unpleasant conversations with employees, clients, friends...with even taxi drivers and shipping-company representatives. It is seemly. And, I would argue, frequently pragmatic: if the package will be delayed, if you will be unable to make it to work or home, it is the consequences of that fact which are the most pressing, not whether it is strictly true that you have seven children and all have suddenly been stricken with broken femurs and the bubonic plague.

Still, sometimes it is indeed counterproductive. Even if I do believe that everything necessary will ultimately be evinced, I imagine an argument could be made for the convenience of knowing some things earlier. I might not spend hours on a big bouillabaisse if we get your shellfish allergy out in the open before it is strictly, absolutely relevant. Or, with regard to dating, I might learn something about you if I inquire as to how or why past relationships ended. And yet it rarely occurs to me to do so.

Likewise I don't wish to talk about myself unduly or accept injudicious praise, so a comment I might construe as flattering or untrue is likely to be met with a simple demurral, and it may thus only be an insult with the sting of veracity that would elicit requests for expansion. Simultaneously, in the other direction, I am seldom sure where the line is that separates conversation from prying, and I thus always err on the side of politesse. In other words, I believe you will tell me what you believe I should know about you at this point, and I am trusting that you are possessed of sufficient good sense and consideration such that we would likely be in accord as to what is relevant.

It is a leap of faith, I suppose: I'm assuming you'll want to let me know that you are still on parole for those youthful murders in '92, or that you lovelovelove Monet, or that, if you had your heart's deepest desire, you would furnish your house in Tuscan Cat style. It's not just about bad things, though: with this as my prejudice and custom, I often miss comments others would construe as leading, as openings, and I sometimes grasp this after I'm gone, in a sinking esprit d'escalier moment on the solitary homeward drive.

Let me clarify that these are not in the main momentous insights or wickedly witty bons mots I regret missing the chance to impress people with. Rather, these are things such as, 'Good heavens, how did that make you feel at the time?' 'That's horrific; how did you get out alive?' 'My, theology to genetics: that's a big jump. What prompted the switch?' 'Huh, next seat, eh? What was Rushdie like in person?' Or even, as a recent example that will haunt me ever, 'Oh, to where?'

It's not as though this is crippling; I do carry on conversations all the time. And in the last case, I saved myself when I noticed the blinking 'insert question' light. However, were I to guess, I would suspect most people would not have hesitated and would have found, instead, asking the question to appear more seemly than not asking it. Perhaps to most it would not even have been a question of appropriateness; it would have been fluid, 'natural' to perceive the statement as an opening. Perhaps in most cases no deliberation would have been called for. All of that is needless speculation, of course; if I'm meant to know whether that's true, I will in time.