In the past 6 months, I have had been going out a lot and meeting a lot of people. During this time at least three men have asked me "So, what are you passionate about?" as a pick-up line. This has started to become my conversational pet peeve.
The concept is good; who doesn't love to talk about themselves?
But it is a conversational dead end when there is a 90% chance that we will never see each other again.
I try to say something surprising and non-personal when asked this question in the hope of rescuing the conversation from the throes of death. During the speed dating, when asked this question I said, "I'm passionate about water. I just love water," because I was really scared of that super-duper long-haired medieval guy and trying to keep the three minutes as impersonal as possible.
Last weekend, after "What are you passionate about?" did not solicit a response, another guy tried this variation: "If you could do anything you wanted to do tomorrow, what would it be?"
When I said, "pack up a suitcase, travel to a tropical island, and sit on a beach all day overlooking the ocean," that did not seem to be *good enough* for my suitor.
"What would you do the next day?" he asked.
"Hmm. I'd probably do that same thing for about two weeks," I said.
And this was an obvious disappointment to this guy. Was he looking for me to say something like, "I want to solve the world's problems and I'm going to start by traveling to Africa and distributing condoms for HIV prevention."
If you're going to judge my answer to a stupid-ass line like that, why ask?
Guys, maybe you could talk about something that you're passionate about, and ask me some related questions to find out if I'm passionate about that too. Or, I don't know... talk about movies or books can at least lead to some subject matter worthy of a passionate discussion.
Sounds like Mr. Pack a suitcase has been watching to many reruns of the Dating Game. "what are you passionate about?" is kind of a weird question. Are they really trying to ask "what are your hobbies?" in a theoretically intriguing way? On a related note, I don't know any single guys between the ages of 25-35 that would have a Dating Game quality answer to that question. Most, if honest, would have to say some combination of beer, chicks, fantasy football, and tv. Do you ever flip the question on them? What are their answers?
ReplyDeleteIf I have flipped the question, they usually don't answer. Maybe they create some sort of diversion like spilling their beer.
ReplyDeleteIt could be worse - that lul in conversation followed by a random, "what's your favorite...", or the "who's your favorite...", and family. How to make a lul into a death wail.
ReplyDeletehas a conversation ever simply developed itself without the forced inquisitions? i would imagine that to be a much more interesting three minutes.
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't think such a conversation has ever developed naturally in the history of men at bars. See my post on Thunderhawk.
ReplyDeleteHa!