• Bigoldmustard
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    28 days ago

    There’s a lot of spectrum concentrated here. I’m on the adhd end and my thinking tends towards connections, allegory, and metaphor and I have a real hard time filtering shit down to something people who think extremely literally will like to read.

    For me, everything is connected and anything could be a stand in for anything else. Not the case for a lot of people here.

    Someone told me not to ask strangers how their day was (like in the real world) if I didn’t really want to know (like that someone’s dad died) and I just had to put my phone down for the rest of the morning. It’s great experience for learning how to talk to others though overall.

    • idiomaddict@feddit.de
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      28 days ago

      Someone told me not to ask strangers how their day was (like in the real world) if I didn’t really want to know (like that someone’s dad died)

      To be fair, this is cultural. I’m an American immigrant in Germany, and I’ve unintentionally started that type of conversation a bunch of times. Here, if you ask, it’s not a social cliche, so you shouldn’t be unprepared for a real answer. In American terms, it’d be like putting your hand on someone’s shoulder, looking them in the eye for a moment and asking “how are you?,” then being surprised if they tell you something sad.

      • Bigoldmustard
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        28 days ago

        Oh cool that’s good to know!

        I had a layover in Frankfurt and my bags didn’t make it on the right flight and the German lady was basically like “I don’t know how you could let this happen”. Nice overall but very direct.

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      26 days ago

      Someone told me not to ask strangers how their day was (like in the real world) if I didn’t really want to know

      Learn how “how are you doing” is different from “how are you feeling”.

      • Bigoldmustard
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        26 days ago

        See you took what I wrote really literally. Thanks this is helpful. What I meant was saying “how’s it going”, but you took it as I would literally ask “how’s your day going”. Like, I would always use quotes to indicate a specific word usage but you have no way of knowing that.

        Also I’d never use the same kind of language or approach to anyone I knew personally. Everyone needs something different. There isn’t a formula to get it right without listening and knowing. How are you doing is how are you feeling where I come from btw. How’s it going is hi. How’s your day is “how’s today no details”.