# "I really don't want to talk to you. Ever." "Wait, did I miss something?" **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 30, 2005, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-really-dont-want-to-talk-to-you-ever-wait-did-i-miss-something/314830 "2005-07-30T00:16:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Nunavut\_Boy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e95f7d/32.png) [@Nunavut\_Boy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nunavut_Boy)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2005, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-really-dont-want-to-talk-to-you-ever-wait-did-i-miss-something/314830/21 "2005-07-30T18:43:21Z")
> [@MrJackboots](#): > > - I’m not allowed to use the word “übermensch” unless I speak fluent German, “le mot juste” unless I speak fluent French, or any of those other colorful phrases that I’ve duct-taped into my working vocabulary; I should use their clumsier English equivalents. On the other hand, it is perfectly kosher for her to use the Japanese “totemo” instead of “very”. Differnent strokes for different folks and all, but using foreign words with friends smacks me of pretentiousness. If one of my friends dropped any one of those in casual conversation, they’d get one of these: “Indeed? And tell me, how was christmas at the yacht club? Jeeves, pull the Bently 'round, I dare say I need to go monocle shopping as my current one is not bejeweled adequately. Heavens, I saw some ordinary looking chap at Starbucks the other day with almost the exact same one! D’you realize what this means?! The commoners in this city have too much fucking money!..” etc, etc ad nauseum. But like I said, YMMV and all that. ---
**Author:** ![MrJackboots](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MrJackboots](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrJackboots)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2005, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-really-dont-want-to-talk-to-you-ever-wait-did-i-miss-something/314830/22 "2005-07-30T22:44:12Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > This is true, however a lot of men are not mature enough or confident enough in themselves to pull of this sort of relationship. This is the classic “Nice Guy” relationship. The friendship is a way to maintain contact with a person they cannot otherwise have, it poisons the friendship. The girl winds up feeling like she has a stalker rather than a friend. You had a crush on her, that is a BAD place to start off a friendship. All sorts of feelings and emotions get dragged in. I’m not sure that had anything to do with this, but it could be hard for you to know since it’s not intentional on your part. > > Let’s go over the timeline, and I’ll throw in my long winded and wildly inaccurate assessment. _takes notes_ I will say in my defense that ordinarily I’m reasonably good at being just-friends; I’m still on solid, friendly terms with most of my exes and a reasonably large number of girls I’ve found attractive but didn’t actually go out with. I’ve never had this problem with them… to my knowledge at least. This is really good, actually, very interesting. I think it might not be all that inaccurate. May I pick your brain a little? > [@Campion](#): > > May I hazard a guess that the light of your life is young, early twenties at the oldest? She doesn’t want to be confrontational and can’t figure out why you don’t get the hint when she turns you down three times. We’re about year and a half apart; she’s 19 and I started legally drinking back in April. Normally I really like the rule about asking three times, but she has a full courseload in San Francisco but lives two hours away (public transit), so I thought this was an extraordinary circumstance and took a last shot at it. This turns out to be the wrong thing to do, of course, but I’m guessing the thinking was flawed to begin with? > [@](#): > > You had just travelled all the way to her home with a poem, she’s going to tell this doe-eyed puppy dog to piss off? Well… I went to her school, but yeah, I thought so, especially when I said, “Look, if you just want to let me down easy, you don’t have to. If you mean it, I’ll be honored, but if you don’t, I’ll go away smiling.” Am I wrong to ask people to take me at face value? > [@](#): > > My opinion, the thing you did that upset her was… not going away (though I doubt the poem helped). From her perspective, she could be telling her friends: > > > [@RageGirl](#): > > > > So I give him the “friends” talk. I mean, he seems like a decent guy and we do have mutual friends, so I don’t want there to be bad blood. Okay, this last bit I have a little trouble understanding, because we didn’t have mutual friends at the beginning (it would take at least three or four degrees to go from one to the other). She introduced me to a couple of hers around the end-of-February-to-the-end-of-March, and I did the same intermittently once that happened. It doesn’t seem like a really good way to nudge someone away, except maybe as a “Ohh, these two would get along really well! Maybe if he likes talking to her more, he won’t talk as much to me.” That seems unlikely, though. These other things, these are really good. Most of them are on the order of “:smack: Why didn’t I see that?” I plead creative exuberance on the poetry one (I’d never been able to really click with meter before, so it was a brand-new, sparkling toy to work with), but I see how it could all be… uh… offputting? Overambitious? I’m not sure, exactly, but I see what you mean. Aside to **Nunavut** : She called it pretentious, too, but isn’t it okay when they’re just normal for the subject at hand? For example, to choose an example from the subject, when you’re talking about writing and you want to talk about having the discipline to sit down and rewrite the same sentence ten or twenty times, looking for _le mot juste_, there really isn’t a better, more satisfying word for it than _le mot juste_. When you talk about electrical wiring, you talk about resistors, capacitors, and relays, right? I’m learning, I think. At the very least I know where I need to correct myself. Whoo. ---
**Author:** ![Nunavut\_Boy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e95f7d/32.png) [@Nunavut\_Boy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nunavut_Boy)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2005, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-really-dont-want-to-talk-to-you-ever-wait-did-i-miss-something/314830/23 "2005-07-31T02:11:47Z")
quote=MrJackboots]Aside to Nunavut: She called it pretentious, too, but isn’t it okay when they’re just normal for the subject at hand? For example, to choose an example from the subject, when you’re talking about writing and you want to talk about having the discipline to sit down and rewrite the same sentence ten or twenty times, looking for le mot juste, there really isn’t a better, more satisfying word for it than le mot juste. When you talk about electrical wiring, you talk about resistors, capacitors, and relays, right? [/quote] Well, _arrive_, _commence_ and _fête_ have all been absorbed into the English lexicon. What would you say, “I have arrived! Let us commence the fête!” or “Let’s get this party started!”. Why is the French translation of “the proper word” any more satisfying? Besides she’s just as guilty with her little Japanese injections. “Totemo”? _Toooooooo_ precious. Anyway, I would argue that very few people speak that way precisely because it sounds a bit pretentious. It’s a stylistic choice which is in no way analogous to the technical jargon of electrical engineers. Of course, this is just one guy talking out of ass. If you like it, then do what makes you happy. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2005, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-really-dont-want-to-talk-to-you-ever-wait-did-i-miss-something/314830/24 "2005-07-31T02:37:49Z")
[QUOTE=MrJackbootsAside to **Nunavut** : She called it pretentious, too, but isn’t it okay when they’re just normal for the subject at hand? For example, to choose an example from the subject, when you’re talking about writing and you want to talk about having the discipline to sit down and rewrite the same sentence ten or twenty times, looking for _le mot juste_, there really isn’t a better, more satisfying word for it than _le mot juste_.[/QUOTE] You’re perfectly within your rights to think _le mot juste_ is the best, most satisfying way to say it, as long as you recognize that some people are bound to think it’s just a pretentious way of saying “the right word.” For example, to choose an example from the subject, when you’re talking about writing and you want to talk about having the discipline to sit down and rewrite the same sentence ten or twenty times, looking for _the right word_, there really isn’t a better, more satisfying word for it than _the right word_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-really-dont-want-to-talk-to-you-ever-wait-did-i-miss-something/314830.md?page=1)