I’ve found asking “what do you like to do” vs “what do you do” to produce much more interesting conversation.

I really don't like getting asked what I do for a living. I exchange labour for money somewhere out of necessity, what's at all interesting about that? What I do in my free time is who I am, and that's much more interesting to talk about, to me.

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oefrha 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I don’t like getting asked what I do for hobbies. The real answer I want to give is “none of your business”, but I’m polite enough to never say that, so it gets awkward.

Getting asked what I do for a living is totally fine. It’s on my website, the whole world can find out if they bother to search. I’ll save you a search.

The point is people are different. Not everyone wants to share their private interests with you, especially if you just met. What you consider interesting conversation, well, for some of us it’s just intrusive. I also don’t care what you like to do 99% of the time. I’ve been socially forced to sit through way too many of these “interesting conversations”.

	▲	mckn1ght 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Could we be thinking about different social situations? I’m not turning to people on the bus and asking what their hobbies are. And it’s not my first question of people visiting my office happy hour. If you’re at my home for dinner, I hope anyone that still feels this way does answer “the details of my private life are none of your business” when I’m trying to get to know them as a friend, so I know never to waste another good meal on them.

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dirkc 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I sometimes joke and say that I type for a living, not entirely untrue. But I've found that sometimes people are offended if I answer their question evasively

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dopidopHN2 3 days ago | parent [-]

I work in a buttons factory

	▲	dirkc a day ago \| parent [-]
		sometime I say "push buttons for a living" instead of typing :) Can also describe my job as 'endlessly deliberate over the placement of pixels'

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pastorhudson 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I always ask “What do you do for fun?”

	▲	scottyah 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Same! I love the pregnant pause after "What do you do..." as they start to mentally draw up their usual work spiel before adding the "...for fun" to flip the conversation around and actually get their brain thinking and exploring beyond the standard conversation flows.