Every time someone asks about my weekend, I say don’t have any plans. Or that I plan to take it easy.
This has worked well enough up until a few days ago. There is a coworker who keeps asking me about my plans for the weekend, and then on Monday she’ll ask me what I did during the weekend. She’s been doing this for several weeks now.
Recently, after she asked and I said I had nothing planed, she said, “you never have any plans on the weekends.” I felt that she added a hint of contempt when she said that.
For the record, I never have any plans for the weekend. However, I don’t want to discuss my lack of plans with my colleagues.
She’ll probably ask me about my weekend plans tomorrow. How should I answer her?
How about answering along these lines: “I’m going to do what I always do–what I love doing–enjoy having unstructured time, to sleep, eat, read and unwind.” What about you? Then kick back and listen to her chatter about her over-planned weekends until you feel you’ve been polite enough.
Why on god’s green earth would you even talk to her at all? If I hadn’t been actively avoiding her before she expressed a negative opinion about my off time, that would have made me start.
Seriously, I would just stare at her for a few seconds and walk away the next time she asked. Or start giving one-word non-answers.
We work in the same department and she stops by my office. I don’t want to be aggressive with her because I think she might escalate things further if she thinks I’m an enemy.
I’m looking for a tactful way of telling her to stop asking.
Is she trying to ask you out? Invite you to church? Find out if you’re gay?
Or does she just think everybody needs company every minute so they can talk nonstop so their lips don’t grow shut?
“So sorry. Wish I could chat right now, but my goodness, I’m swamped!” Then look back down at the work on your desk and wait for her to get the hint and leave.
Alternately, the next time she gives a rude response to your answer to a nosy question, you could look at her and say, slowly, in your best monotone, “Oh. Kay.” That seems to be the current way to tell people they’re being rude.
Okay, now I’m curious. Has she “escalated” with other people, that you know of? Also, “enemy”? You don’t want to explain your private life. What are you afraid she’ll do?
In order to keep from boring myself with the truth, often I make up lies. Not the kind of “funny” lies that a person would know are fake. But realistic lies involving trips to arts festivals and hook-ups with old friends from college and hiking adventures out in the wilderness somewhere. I figure that lying about shit that no one cares about anyway is completely harmless.
The more you post, Lakai, the more I feel like you’re me and I’m you. I absolutely detest questions about my weekend plans. Or the post-mortem questions on Monday. I know that this is just harmless, well-intentioned chitter-chat, but it just feels incredibly nosy and unnatural to me. I don’t care what other people did over the weekend. So it’s really hard for me to figure out why anyone who be sincerely interested in mine.
Also, she could be jealous of your no-plan weekends and not contemptuous like you think. I’ve had a few people with busy families and young kids ask me what I’m doing the next day and I answer, “Sleep until I wake up, have some bourbon in my coffee, and see where the day takes me from there.” They typically respond with a miffed/jealous remark about not being able to do that or not remembering the last time they got a solid night’s sleep. Eh. We’ve simply made different choices in life.
“Oh nothing special. Just heading down to the cobbler to pick up my shoes, get some groceries, head to the play ground to shop for a kid, pick up my dry cleaning, and wax my floors. You ?”
I started with a new dentist. I know he was just trying to get to know me and all, but when he asked “what are you doing this weekend”, and I said “oh, not much”, he goes “what, are you going to stare at the wall?”. I was too polite to say what I was thinking (why the 3rd degree? - please just STFU and take care of my teeth).