Don’t Ask A Question If You Are Just TRYING To Be Polite
Posted by terrepruitt on February 19, 2020
So what is your opinion . . . .? I think that you shouldn’t ask a question if you are just TRYING to be polite, because then you end up being rude. I don’t think it IS polite for someone to ask a question if they don’t have time or the mental capability or capacity to listen to the answer. I don’t want to say that people don’t care about the answer, because I feel as if we all care, but sometimes we don’t have time for the answer. We might have somewhere else we need to be. Sometimes, it is not as if we are not smart enough that we don’t have the mental capability/capacity I mean we just might not be in the right space to listen to the answer. I know that when my mom was dying if someone were to have given me instructions on how I could have easily received a million dollars, I wouldn’t have been able to listen and remember. So that is what I mean by not having the mental capability. It could be that we are distracted, we have too much on our minds to listen to the response. So . . . to me, it is not polite to ask a question if we are just trying to be polite and we really aren’t going to listen to the answer. What do you think?
What sparked this whole post was something I witnessed recently where one person asked another person a question, but then when the second person started to answer the person who asked had a face that screamed, “When can I interrupt to leave?” Now, I know I am assuming things by looking at people, but I felt bad for the second person because they were excited as they started to answer, but as they began picking up on the attitude of the person who asked they became sad because they realized that the person didn’t really want an answer. And that is where I am saying the question shouldn’t even be asked. Why bother?
What also comes to mind is when people say, “How are you doing?” as a greeting. Instead of just saying “Hello.” They say, “How are you doing?” as they walk on past. They really don’t mean it as a question they want an answer to, they just use it as their form of greeting.
Perhaps it is such a habit for some people to ask that they don’t stop themselves when they are in the don’t-have-time or can’t-really-engage stage. I don’t know. That is kind of what what I am asking.
What do you think?
Terre Pruitt's Blog 
bereavedandbeingasingleparent said
some people do genuinely care while many may ask but actually your only supposed to reply – fine how are you. For me the secret is to work out who is who.
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terrepruitt said
Yes, I do believe people do care, in fact, I believe that the ones that ask and don’t listen might even care . . . but what I am saying is perhaps need asking all the time is not polite. Perhaps they could only ask when they have the time/capacity to listen. I think for some people it is such a habit they ask whether they are able to listen or not.
And another thing that spurred this post is what you said, the secret of working out who is who, the other day someone walked by me saying, “How are you?” and I knew they didn’t mean it so I just said, “Hello.” So I guess it is as you said, it is up to others to realize that some people just ask without any regard to the answer.
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Alien Resort said
I just assume it’s somebody smart who likes to ask rhetorical questions.
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terrepruitt said
Hmmmm? Too “smart” to care how someone is REALLY doing?
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Alien Resort said
I’m probably giving them too much credit.
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terrepruitt said
Ha. Maybe not, I have one person from my past in mind who I believe was REALLY smart (but I could have been wrong, I don’t know), and his standard greeting was, “How are you doing?” In addition to being smart (at least I thought he was) he was really tall so he could practically be gone by the time he finished saying it – his long legs carrying him away in a breath. But that was just how he said Hello. So, yeah, to him it could have been a rhetorical question.
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kaitiscotland said
I think “How are you…Fine… How are you” is redundant as a question as such and does work only as a superficial greeting. “What’s been happening since I last saw you?” is a proper question and shouldn’t be asked if you want a one sentence reply.
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terrepruitt said
That’s a good question, but, yeah, I would definitely only use it when I had time for the answer. I do understand people asking, “How are you doing?” when even briefly talking to someone . . . but it is, as you mentioned, a very superficial question as a GREETING!. 🙂
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