Responses to unwelcome questions

Okay so I read and understand that this thread is answered about kids. However unwelcome questions are from many different topics. Here's what happened to me.
My new neighbors ( just trying to get to know everyone ) have asked me shit tons of personal questions about my finances. How much I make an hour, what I paid for this and that, and then told me their stuff. C'mon

 

Okay back to my nosey new neighbors. I'm outside doing a labour of hate ( mowing the lawn ) when Lee that's the woman of the two walks up to the fence. She flat out asks me about Sandy and why she hasn't seen her. So I politely explained my different home arrangements. Then she processed to tell me that her and Eric ( her man ) aren't married. That she is the money and she is debt free, and doesn't need to work cause she filed for disability. Also that Eric doesn't have a pot to pee in. And everything he has she provided. And that includes his car that he can keep cause he'll need it to get out of her life if he ever miss steps on her. Also Eric just got a better job making 5$ an hour more and she's glad cause he will need it. I really didn't need to know.

 

I usually just give people my cold
Why would you ask me such a personal question?
look.

Most folks get the message right away. For those who don't, I either continue The Look , or give the briefest (non)response possible, one word if possible, no more than three. If they continue to be obtuse, I just look away and completely ignore them.

I worked with a woman who asked why my wife & I didn't have children. She was a new hire, and started in with personal questions right away to everyone in the office. She was of an ethnic group that viewed pregnancy a sign of 'real manhood' and 'real womanhood,' and her religion is well-known for being pro-procreation. It took several firm "That's none of your business" responses to shut her up; I don't think she ever got the message, she just moved on to bothering other people.

Note: Much of this 'silent treatment' I learned from my father. He had a severe stutter, which made him a man of few words. Because being upset/angry made his stutter even worse, he would just ignore people. This totally POd my mom when she tried to start a fight with him.

 

@Popeye it sounds like your neighbors are the kind who overshare and feel that everyone else should too.
Your best bet with folks like that is to either cut them off with a polite "Oh, look at the time. I have to go clean the sewers." type thing.
They don't mean to make you feel uncomfortable but no matter what the line is they are going to walk over it and keep going by a couple of yards.

 

I'm getting "When's baby #2?" It was the worst when I had just had a miscarriage.

 

I didn't know that my grandmother had three miscarriages before my mom was born until after she has past away.
You didn't ask question like that in those days and you sure as hell didn't make comments.
Now it is possible that my grandma had to put up insufferable busybodies back then too but I suspect she would have shut them down with a withering stare.

 

I can't imagine your pain, and I can't think of a response nasty enough under that circumstance.

 

My wife and I went about things backwards and got pregnant first. "When are you two getting married" . WTF are people thinking? It's none of your damn business.

After the first few iterations, we'd repeat in unison "I'm not sure (s)he's a keeper, yet".

 

BabyDaddy and I still aren't married.

 

I'm wrapping up a Master's degree. I'm 27. I'm single. I'm also Jewish. Some of you know where this is going already.

For everyone else what this means in practice is whenever I'm at a "normal" synagogue instead of the university chabad house I get a lot of people asking me about kids, and trying to sell me on family members I couldn't share a canoe with. Generally I try to be polite and say I haven't found my beshert yet or just steer the conversation elsewhere, I don't really want to say something too wildly inappropriate in a family synagogue. Before I lost my necklace I'd just hold it up and ask people incredulously "Have you seen my necklace? You're asking the guy that wears dungeons and dragons dice why he's single, think about it."

But sometimes even I have my limits and when asked why I don't have kids yet I'll just matter of factly respond "Well generally a woman has to be involved in the process at some point, were you volunteering?"

I should probably stop that, it might backfire.

 

Loyalty doesn't require marriage, just the right person.

 

I know, I've met many of them. They're all married or have been with the same person for many years. Or they're not jewish. Theres a reason I say I have excellent taste but abysmal timing.

The problem with having good taste is it's like finding a parking spot. All the good ones are taken very quickly.

 

Or don't, and maybe you've got material for a bestseller...

 

Not so much a question, but statements of (I presume) jealousy about my physique.

I've always been very thin (genetics), which many see as something they need to let me know will end at any time.

"You're thin now, but just wait until you turn AGE X!"

First it was when I get to college (freshman 15, etc.), then 25, then 30, then 40.

Well I'm now 41 and at 6'4", still weigh just 180 pounds.

But everyone just hopes for me to get that pot belly some day.

 

I suppose I've given off a strong "not interested in having kids" vibe for so long that I've been spared it being asked of me, with few exceptions. Even when I was "married" and my exwife wanted kids, my mother flat out told me—privately—that she didn't thinking it was such a great idea and was concerned for how it might, or or might not, work out for us. I mean, she knew me well, but... hi, awkward.

For a while after I left the church I'd been attending with said exwife—incidentally, the same church where we were "married"—its congregants, with whom I was interacting from time to time in local circles, would regularly ask me when I was coming back. I think they mostly wanted me back so I could play music at the services for them. I wasn't interested then, and I still haven't been back.

The most relevant awkward question I've fielded lately had been my mother nagging me about calling contractors to come work on my house. Lucky for me, that all got wrapped up last summer. Nowadays it's just the typical "Are you eating? Are you sleeping? Do you have a cold?" bit that I'm accustomed to. My honest answers are never satisfactory.