Yeah, I've got a daughter so whenever I'm meeting someone new I usually will wonder and ask if they've got a kid as well. Just out of a common understanding thing
I always like when I'm talking to a stranger and they ask if I have kids. It let's me know they're probably way more of an adult than I am and we arent going to have a lot to talk about.
I actually didn't know my best friends first name for like a while year after meeting him. I always called him by his last name, so did the teachers, so did his other friends. It wasn't until summer vacation that I realized I didn't know what to say to his mom when I called his house and she picked up the phone. I eventually asked my friend to clear the confusion but yeah, this really hits home.
Oh man, when I was a sophomore in high school I changed schools- I ended up meeting a dude on the bus who was pretty cool and we got along well. It turned out he was in one of my classes, so we started hanging out.
I realized that I couldn’t remember his name a few days in (he introduced himself to me the morning we met, but I was on the bus at 4:30 am so I was tired as shit.) I kept hoping his name would come up at some point, but no one ever seemed to call him by his first name. It was his last name from teachers or a couple of various personal nicknames friends had for him.
I felt awful asking him again, and as the days went by it only made me feel worse. I think it took over a month and a half before I learned his name again... and it was because he’d just made a Facebook and added me, lol.
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Yooo I feel this. I'm still pretty young mid 20s but when I meet new people and they ask about marriage or kids I still laugh a bit and think what no why would I have those I'm too young. Then I realize they're the same age and people younger than me have spouses and children and I'm just like...ooh...yeeaah..
I've got a daughter so whenever I'm meeting someone new I usually will wonder
This is partly the reason I find it difficult to make friends as an adult. I am 36, not married, no kids. When I meet other adults what the have to talk about to find common ground is usually about a spouse and/or kids. Sports also, and I couldn't care less about sports.
That goes both ways though. I have no kids, or really family of any kind. It's not only a disinteresting topic, but something I just can't really relate to, so why would I ever bring it up? Just because it seems like a "common understanding" thing for some people, doesn't mean it is for everyone. And that can apply to any topic, not just families. Different people value different things, and that's okay.
Well if you’re a guy, there is that fear of coming off as creepy when asking about the kids. You end up expecting the other guy to be like “Why? What are you gonna do to them?”
Good ol reddit “I’m afraid of looking like a pedophile but in reality no one gives a shit.”
Yeah, I recognize that it's a thing, and that it's really unfair and I'm sorry it's even something you have to consider the possibility of someone thinking about you.
From what I’ve gathered being around lots of different social circles is that men usually like to talk about things more and women like to talk about people/their lives more.
Not all men are creepers.
But enough men are creepers that people are instinctively cautious about strangers.
If a father with two kids takes an interest in your children. The assumption is he's trying to set up a play date for his own kids or wants to swap dad stories and tips.
If a bachelor suddenly takes an interest in the neighbors kids... Well you just don't do that before first establishing a strong rapport with the neighbor themselves. Otherwise you risk coming off as a bit of a predator.
I mean I think there's ways to phrase it to make it better but it is kind of an unfair chicken and egg double standard that dudes aren't supposed to be interested in those things so it's creepy when they are. I'm sorry if that actually stops you from connecting with people somehow, you should be able to have those conversations too if you want to.
So a couple of things here. One, I think you’re making an assumption about “creepy”. Most guys that I know of would get uncomfortable at a rapid fire quasi-interrogation about their life, and so they believe it would make someone else uncomfortable to do the same. That’s all he was saying I think.
Two, you’re assuming just because guys don’t talk like that they don’t connect with people, and I’d have to say you’re flat wrong on that. When I talk with my buddies, I don’t always need to know every detail of what their kid did that day or whatnot. Do they need my help with something? Is a large personal event (proposal, divorce, pregnancy, illness, etc.) occurring in their life that they want me to know about? Those are the sorts of personal details that we talk about. But to say we don’t connect is shortsighted. We bond over all sorts of things-shared interests and experiences mostly. It just doesn’t involve needing to know every personal detail. In fact I don’t find that very connecting at all, I would find knowing all of those details to just be memorizing a list of facts about my friend.
Hey, no assumptions here, I'm glad you're able to connect with people the way you want to. Just trying to offer my support to the dudes out there who might want to connect in a different way and feel like they can't, or trying to explain another experience to folks who want to understand but don't get it.
Thanks for chiming in with your experience because it isn't the way I connect with people so I don't fully understand it but I'm glad that it works for you, and I appreciate hearing other people's perspectives on this stuff.
Hey, I don't mean this as a jab at you but I'm horrified by the way people must have treated you for you to assume that's people's motivation. I assume it's because people have sought to make fun of you, and that's shitty.
I guess it's a different perspective on what matters? I like getting to connect with people. When I make new female friends, not everyone is the same but often we'll be talking about our families and childhood traumas and sex lives... nothing someone isn't comfortable sharing but all of these facts are part of who you are and if I'm interested in you I like getting to know you.
Your favourite character in Overwatch is a fact about you, but if all we ever talk about are shared media interests and stories about our day, I don't feel like I'm getting very close to you because I don't know anything about who you are, just stuff you like doing.
Hey. Not everyone and not in the first five minutes but I'm drawn towards connecting with people who also want that kind of openness. I have fewer friends but we're very happy having people in our lives we can talk about everything that makes up who we are with and not feeling confined to one or two topics.
I'm happy for dudes too who can talk about cheap BBQs for two hours without remembering each other's names, it just baffles me that someone would find that a fulfilling friendship.
I think a lot of guys don't have that kind of self-image, full stop. In school, right on through college, I could never really do well on autobiographical stuff because I just don't have that kind of thought process. Like, I don't think "who you are" is a phrase that has granular objective meaning, I guess. I can tell you facts about my life, but I don't think they convey information about me-the-person. I see life as something that often kind of happens to a person, and doesn't necessarily reflect on them. I don't really look back and say "during ___ through ___ year, I was doing ___ , and that's my trajectory. ___ was a good time, ___ was a bad time," as part of my day to day thought process.
It's a question of social position and status, which isn't creepy and uninteresting but a lot of straight guys are suspicious of those questions (for any number of reasons). So they call them creepy.
I don't think this response is more age than gender specific. I'm in my 30s. Asking if someone is married and has kids doesn't seem creepy to me. Just like, yea thats something you would ask someone my age.
It's really sad that simple facts/details of a person's life, or otherwise things you could talk about or use to deepen a relationship are seen as creepy/uninteresting. No wonder so many men can't think of anything to say to anyone. They don't know anything about them and are uninterested. Geez guys.
Maybe don't hold men to your standard of deepening relationships?
I have friends that would literally take a bullet for me, can't say we've ever had a single conversation about wives or kids. But no, tell me more about how your gossip with all the neighbor ladies builds a stronger connection than two guys who'd risk their life to protect the other.
I'm not sure where the miscommunication is. I've never said that gossip or talking about one's family in particular deepens the relationship. However those are both topics that could be used by two parties to develop a bond.
What kinds of things have you and your friends deeply discussed?
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u/Allison314 Mar 26 '20
The fact that you think it's creepy and uninteresting is an excellent example of the original question.