The 7 Questions We All Ask That are Absolutely None of Our Business

Has Social Media Made us More Nosy?

Last week I ran into one of my tv buddies in a greenroom. I hadn’t seen him in more than a year — since we last appeared on a television program together. We did the sort of catching up that we do with those we haven’t seen in a while. “How are you? How’s work? How’s life?” Then he asked me a question out of the blue. “So Keli are you married yet?” To which I replied, “That depends. Are you proposing?”

Now let me say for the record, that I know that he wasn’t. He was simply asking out of curiosity, and probably a bit of fatherly concern, as in “Have you settled down yet with someone great who will take good care of you?” Let me also add that he is by far one of my favorite tv buddies. He is not only an entertaining guest, but he’s also gracious—giving his fellow guests every opportunity to shine instead of trying to hog the entire segment, like some guests try to do. But when I was asked the same question days later, by an acquaintance I don’t know all that well, I had a conversation with a girlfriend about all of the funny questions we are regularly asked, and that over the years we have asked others, that are really none of our business. By “our” I mean no one’s business but close friends and family members, and sometimes not even theirs. Yet in a society in which every birth announcement is expected to go up on facebook, with accompanying photo, before a new mother even exits the hospital, boundaries seem to have become a foreign concept. So below, a list of questions we have all probably asked someone we are not related to, not close friends with, not interested in pursuing an intimate relationship with, or interested in setting up in an intimate relationship with someone we know, that are absolutely none of our business.

That doesn’t mean we have to stop asking them necessarily. But we should at least do the polite thing and ask them behind the person’s back.