Example: I am working a temporary job giving people surveys on the Metrolink trains. Today, a man getting off the train handed me a flyer advertising a book he wrote. Looking at the flyer, it was not immediately apparent what it was because it was rather wordy and had several seemingly un-related pictures. I ask “What’s this?” and he says “A survey!” and laughs (I had just been the one passing out surveys so he thought this was funny). But it just confused me, since it was obviously not a survey and I really had no idea what the hell it was. I gave it more time than I should have to figure out what it really was, but it didn’t make me very interested in his book, which I thought was the goal of self-promotion.
And then another guy who I was working with kept (constantly) saying “Good morning!” enthusiastically to people getting on the night train. Nobody thought it was very funny and pretty much everyone corrected him, but he just kept saying it thinking it was (funny that is, he knew it wasn’t morning).
I hate feeling confused. But I tend to trust people enough to go along with the energy of what they are saying until it registers and I realize they are spewing bullshit from their mouth (this takes a couple seconds, but responding to their energy is an instantaneous thing. So in those couple of seconds I just feel confused). At least, I’ll give that benefit of the doubt to people I don’t know - once I get to know them and expect this sort of crap I am much less likely to give them the time of day at all. But anyway, why do they do it? Is there some sort of disease that causes this behavior or is it just a general failure to grow up?
While I must say the practice doesn’t really bother me very much, I have noticed that such people tend to think they’re much cleverer than they actually are, and thus deserve one of these - :rolleyes: .
Sometimes, stupid questions require stupid answers. For example, one day I sat in my chair at work and the back fell off.
Co-worker: Where’d you get that chair from?
Me: From The Broken Chair Store— ha!
The “ha!” is to make sure the person asking the stupid question knows I’m just joking, because you can’t be too sure. A person who doesn’t know I got my chair the same way as she did can be easily confused and not know I didn’t actually get it from a broken chair store.
After falling down in the train station.
Stranger to me as I lay on the ground: Did you fall?
Me: No, I bounced. Ha!
The “ha!” again is for the person who saw me fall and yet had to ask the stupidest question ever. Just in case he didn’t know I was joking.
To the OP: You should have tossed the flyer when the handee made the sarcastic joke. That’ll learn him.
Some people just enjoy fucking with people. They are exceedingly lame but they don’t know it. When I meet one of them and I figure out that that is what they are like, I immediately put them on my black list and have as little to do with them as possible -forever. I am like you in that I assume honesty until the person proves otherwise. It is their dishonor to be that way. Life is too short to have anything to do with immaturity like that.
I fail to perceive what’s the big deal. These people said something they thought was clever and/or funny, and you didn’t find them clever nor funny. End of the story. That’s all I see here.
What pisses me off are people who tell you something not so very unreasonable, absolutely dead-pan, and then later seem to get off on your gullibility that you actually believed them. I’m not talking about seeing aliens land in Grovers’ Mills here, I’m talking about perfectly reasonable things that could quite readily be true. Why is it funny that you would believe them?
I happen to be one of those people who says “good morning!” all the time. It sounds more cheerful than “good day” or “good evening.” I admit I do like seeing people in that instant of realization where I can tell they’re actually paying attention. Most people don’t, just drifting through the world on autopilot, giving canned answers and not thinking or listening.
Seems to me I could make an argument against people like the OP, who are using their big brains on something sooo-oooo important that they can’t be bothered to spare any calories to interact with other humans in the world. Confusing people may not be funny, but one could argue that wrapping yourself in “I’m not going to think about any of you people or anything you do or say” is just selfish.
On the other hand, I’m also exactly as clever as I think I am — though that’s not saying much.
Hmmm… this isn’t a very good description of me or the attitude I was trying to convey.
I love to interact with other humans in the world. I love humor. But intentionally confusing people and then laughing at their awkward stares just isn’t my style. And like I said, I don’t like feeling confused. So when I realize someone is prone to that sort of behavior, I’m just not going to trust them/pay attention to them anymore. That’s all.
I don’t think these are the same thing. I understand that sometimes a very obvious question calls for a joking response - but in the example I gave in the OP, like I said, the flyer he gave me was a mess, very wordy, and at a glance, not clear at all what it was for. I was also busy working at the time. So why should I spend a lot of time deciphering this cryptic thing when he could have just told me what it was when I asked him?
Yes, this falls under what I was talking about. It’s intentionally deceptive, and the only purpose is some sort of juvenile satisfaction that you trusted them when they were full of shit (even though it sounded not so very unreasonable). What’s the point?
I’ll admit I’ve done the Good morning thing in the evening. Part of it, though, is that I can’t say Good Evening as a greeting without trying to Karloff it, which would be even stupider.
Of course a simple, “Hello,” gets around the whole problem.
Exactly. I don’t understand why anyone would find it funny that you would believe them when they have quite seriously told you something completely believable. Am I supposed to go around distrusting *anything * anyone tells me, even when there is no motive to lie and no absurdity I’m having to swallow?
I admit I have at times done the deadpan delivery, plausible thing. This past April Fool’s Day I asked a coworker if she heard another coworker’s father had died, and when she went into Oh My God! mode I said in a really obnoxious way April Fools!!! But at least I did it on an appropriate day if nothing else, and she did laugh afterwards.
