Why people so fas’? Mind yuh business!

Chickety chickety check this out. You’re walking down the road, and ‘bounce up’ Stacy from secondary school days. You say, “Aye gyul, how yuh goin’?” She says, “I good. Where yuh working? Yuh marrid?”

When this happens, it doh fret yuh? It frets me.

Invisible ‘screw pan’ firmly in place, several responses rush through my mind – “Dais none of yuh business!” “Why you so fas’ dread?” Dat helping you buy bread?”

I mean, how does this information help the macocious person who thinks it’s okay to instantly bombard me with these questions?

When people ask you these questions, do they interrogate you because they are genuinely interested in your welfare? Is it because you’ve been on their mind all of this time? Did their mommy ask them to conduct a survey? Really. Why dey so fas’?

Human nature is, by nature, curious. However, I find this type of curiosity to be highly obnoxious, and entirely irritating (as you may have realised by now). Oh, and it’s tacky. A real conversationalist knows how to ‘pick your mouth’, without you realising it.

I don’t ask people their business, even if I haven’t seen them in a long time. Once everything seems nice like spice in their world, I’m very satisfied with exchanging superficial pleasantries and moving on. It’s not that I don’t care, or that I’m antisocial (okay, sometimes I am), but if we’re just acquaintances, and I’ve survived without knowing what they’ve been doing for the past 15 years, how is it relevant? Even if it’s a friend, I’d make a general enquiry as to whether all is well, and wait for them to volunteer information. (Obviously, I don’t make a good maco.)

Maybe, if we ended up having a nice, long chat, the conversation may naturally run that course. Allow me to repeat the n word…naturally.

Asking mere acquaintances personal questions seems inappropriate. It’s meant to satisfy only the other person’s need for information, and, often, does not represent sincere concern. I’m willing to give fas’ people the benefit of the doubt, though.

Maybe, they do this because they’re poor conversationalists. Maybe, all they know is ‘small talk’. Maybe, they’re socially awkward, and rely on questions they remember seeing their favourite sitcom character ask.

Still, it’s not the questioning that bothers me so much you know. It’s the immediacy of the line of questioning. I mean…the first thing you ask me is what I’m doing with my life? You eh even ask me a generic “how yuh going” question? You eh even apply some verbal foreplay?

Curiosity is great. Pure macociousness? Not so much.

Knowing information about each other connects us to each other, and helps us to discover commonalities that bond us, and differences that intrigue us, but it’s only meaningful when we’re truly connected to each other.

I once met an old university peer, as a co-worker and I were leaving the office to walk into downtown Port of Spain to get lunch. She looked my suit and flip flops up and down (allyuh know walking in high heels in the midday hot sun is torture), and asked me if I was working at “insert one of the companies that was housed in the building”. I answered yes, even though that was incorrect.

She then asked what I’d been up to. I didn’t tell her that I had a good job, and had recently returned from England, with a master’s degree with distinction, and a complexion that had moved from caramel brown to mellow yellow (fas’ people tend to miss the little things).

My co-worker asked why I hadn’t told her all that I’d achieved. You know what my response was. It was none of her business.

I knew that she had asked me, because she had always fancied herself the cream of the crop in our set. So, she was assessing me to see how I lined up in comparison to her.

That’s another reason some people try to mind yuh business. They are constantly comparing themselves to others.

So, how do you deal with this type of situation? It would be hypocritical of me to tell you what to do the next time someone turns a random meeting into a one-sided interrogation – reason being that I’ve failed to implement any of the reactions that I’ve imagined myself giving.

What do I do? Every plan to be sassy, and tell them that it’s none of their damn business, is pushed to the back of my brain. I answer them, curtly, but sweetly, and still provide a smidgen of information. Good graces I rebuke you! And is years now I want to give someone a smart-aleck response eh.

When people accost us like this, we often walk away thinking, “Oh gosh. He/she fas’ eh”. We might tell a friend afterwards, or, for those who have the time, or are equally macocious, we engage in tit for tat, and pepper dey tail with questions. But at the moment of interrogation, we’re really thinking, “What do I really want to tell this person right now?”

If being interrogated bothers you, surely we can find a way to address it, right? So, now that I’ve gotten the irritation out of my system, and you’ve stayed with me to this point, I’d like to return the favour. Tell me. How do you handle these situations, and if you had the gall, what would you tell them?

 

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