Intrusive Questions…?

I was effortlessly ambling in conversation with a circle of friends when a set of words landed in my consciousness that disrupted my ability to stay present and focused. Do you remember in grade school when it was clear two classmates were about to get into a physical scuffle and there was a silent and magnetic pull to gather round and watch how things unfold? That is exactly how it felt internally. I felt both sick to my stomach and unable to extract myself.

The two words Intrusive Question were about to tussle!

My friend had spoken the paired words with such a confidence of shared understanding that I had to admit my feeling of naivete and ignorance to the concept. When she just sat looking at me and blinking an unusual number of times, everything within was sensing a dire social “security risk.”  My mind raced, trying to stitch together fragments of history from friendships that spilled across decades. How many of them were violated by my profound lack of awareness?! Even though I have had a consistent assemblage of friends in my life, there was no space for a rational thought to edge its way into the discursive thoughts actively convincing me I must be a social wrecking ball.

I have a confession to make. I have a particularly outspoken committee of voices in my head that make quite convincing arguments about the do’s and don’ts of conversations. Rationally, I know most of them make radically inaccurate assessments. But when you have encounters that support their perspective, suddenly it becomes incredibly important to listen. AND I DO!

The most dominant voice among them repeatedly assures me, “Nobody really cares about what you think, feel, or believe.”   She has a cohort that helps her out. One stays on top of all trending sensitivities and says things like, “Careful, if you say that, you may offend them.”  Another is like a social accountant, keeping ledger sheets on everyone I have had social interaction with. They are quick to remind me about past misfiring’s. “They are not going to like it if you share that observation.”  “Don’t you remember in the past; they didn’t like when you showed up emotionally fragile…joyful…angry.” 

Instead of showing better discernment about who I spent my social time with, I systematically edited various parts of myself to maintain the perfect version of Melissa so as not to disrupt our fragile social ecosystem. In truth, it was exhausting to keep track of it all, so I devised a foolproof system that rewarded me with tons of social validation.

I do not think it requires a degree in psychology to readily identify, I show up in my conversations with a compulsion to give what I am desperate to receive. I want to know with certainty that my conversation partner is interested, curious about and engaged with what makes me ME. And in what could only be identified as a pretty youthful response, I figure, I will model the behavior I am hopeful to become the recipient of.

Ask me how well this works. I have, in fact, gotten so good at asking questions, there is no space for them to insert potential interest. I have singlehandedly excised myself from their focus. Bobbing and weaving through endless inquiry and fruitful fascination with their inner terrain, I keep them so verbally active; there is no room for reversing course. They feel so seen and understood the insistence on getting together again soon is a foregone conclusion. And the gold star of social validation is successfully delivered each time.

I am calling myself out on what could easily be identified as a maladaptive and perhaps manipulative defense mechanism. But within it emerged a skill that our much-polarized world is in high demand of. We need to find our way back to genuine curiosity about our world and the people we share it with. My conversational dodging created a decades long pattern of conversational prospecting.

I cared far less about events in people’s lives and far more about how those events were experienced. How they interpreted things and how those interpretations created emotional responses and specific choices was endlessly fascinating to me. I learned a lot about people doing this. And furthermore, I recognize my questions often led them to reexamine, or explore for the first time, how they were perceiving things. I cannot tell you how many times people would catch themselves disclosing things and say, “I don’t know why I am telling you all of this.”  In my mind, I would think, “Because I asked you about it.”

My husband and I built a successful business around this skill and historically, I have found people incredibly forthcoming and remarkably welcome to my questions. Sometimes, I think our social media platforms have reduced our communication skills down to competing one sided declarations and we have absolutely lost the art of inquiry. And with the algorithms reducing our digital worlds into microcosms of confirmation bias, we have diminished our capacity to find interest in differing views.

But at the heart of inquiry is a genuine interest to understand. Conversational prospecting starts with an overall attitude that there is something of value under the surface. If I enter the interaction as if carrying a metal detector, I can pay attention to the conversational landscape and see where my companion lights up. Their natural interests or current struggles tell me where to place my attention. Just like when a metal detector sounds, the prospector in me hones in on the specific location and then settles in to gently scrape and dig, hopeful to unearth whatever thing of value alerted the detector. It has been my experience that people respond quite favorably when you approach it as if there is something of value to be discovered. And the best part – that exploration often leads them into their own self discovery and awareness.

Did you know, there was a study done recently where people were asked to sit in a quiet waiting room for 15 minutes without their phone? Most reported the experience was uncomfortable for them. The same participants were then given the option of simply sitting for another 15 minutes or self-administering a mild electrical shock to their ankle. Twenty-seven percent of women and 62% of men, elected to deliver electrical shocks to themselves rather than sit quietly in their own company. These findings reflect a tragic truth about our ability to be present with ourselves.

We entered the world with a natural desire to seek new knowledge and we felt joy in learning and growing. As children, we started receiving messages that asking questions was impolite or exposed our lack of understanding. Both carry enough social risk that we replaced curiosity with caution.

It is going to take a good bit of courage to address both the obstacles and our current intolerance of introspection. But our world needs us to do it. Collectively, we benefit when we have self-aware members interacting with each other. When we better understand what motivates us, how we are experiencing something, the feelings it is creating and the skill to communicate about it, I believe we will naturally create a more inclusive, safer, and kinder world. But we need to help each other into that terrain and conversational prospecting is an effective tool to gently nudge each other there while renewing our relationship with joyous exploration.

So… please share your thoughts with us. What makes a question intrusive? Do you believe people will naturally share what they are willing to talk about? Or do you think people are waiting for you to show genuine interest? Are there certain questions that are just intrusive? Or is the nature in which they are asked what makes them intrusive? What makes you open to sharing?