Are you dreading your next family reunion because of questions like these:
Are you dating yet?
When are YOU going to get married?
And even the well meant, How is a great person like you still single?
It can leave you feeling...well, singled out.
If you are in the throes of planning your next family reunion, why not prepare yourself as well? How are you going to handle those questions?
You are not alone.
The first thing you need to know is that you are not the only one. Everybody gets the "same old" questions about the same old hot button issues no matter what our state in life. We've all been poked in our tender spot.
Sometimes the questions come from genuine concern. Other times people are just being curious. More often than not, people are just trying to make conversation.
After all, doesn't conventional wisdom say it's polite to ask people to talk about themselves? I believe it simply never occurs to people that the person they are talking to has heard it all before.
For instance, I've got more than the recommended number of kids. Hence, the question, Are you done?
I used to want to preempt it with a t-shirt, Ask God.
But there are so many other questions I would have needed a drawerful of t-shirts to answer: Are they all from the same father? Are you trying for a boy/girl/baseball team? And my personal favorite, Are you nuts?
T-shirt: Yes, and dangerous!
It used to drive me, well, nuts, until I realized that it happens to us all.
It doesn't make me crazy anymore
My kids are homeschooled so they get: Do you have friends? What about prom? And, Do you wear your pajamas all day?
My sister is divorced. She gets: Are you dating? Are you going to get married again? And, What happened?!
A friend of mine, whose brother wasn't doing so great, used to dread hearing, Did Slothbo get a job yet?
If you're a new parent whose kid refuses do any of the following: wean, eat solid food, walk, say duh-duh, be potty trained, or give up the binky, do you really need yet another phone call from your mother-in-law asking if it happened yet?
The crisis question
Then there's the daily question for those dealing with a crisis: How are you? It is a perfectly legitimate question and people mean well. But after the 200th time, you feel like you have a billboard on your forehead: "Let's obsess about the worst thing that ever happened to me!"
These friends of mine were facing a long and mysterious illness in their family. One Christmas, they told their relatives that they would be glad to give updates any time but not on Christmas. They just wanted one day to forget it and enjoy life.
Ultimately, you realize that most people never mean to push your buttons. They are just being kind and concerned. Or—in my case, simply curious.
My own mea culpa
Yes, I hereby offer my own mea culpa. I once asked my brother, who is a vegetarian, What do you do on Thanksgiving? I was simply curious as to how the other half lived and, of course, I was being completely original. Surely, no had ever asked him that question before!
"Oh..." he said, slowly shaking his head, his shoulders slumping. "Thanksgiving is a day of mourning around here. We all march into the dining room carrying an empty platter..."
I wish you could have see him pantomiming dropping the empty platter on the table with an air of utter hopelessness. It's one of my favorite memories, which I often act out at parties. It opened my eyes and made me laugh. It made me soften up my attitude towards those who do it to me. AND, best of all, it finally gave me a solution!
Gentle humor. If the soft answer turneth away wrath, surely the funny answer turneth away annoying questions.
If that fails, you can always try the t-shirt. What would yours say?
