Bad question, good intention

There’s always a conflict between people about whether there really are stupid questions or not. In school, you always hear teachers say, “Oh no there is no such thing as a stupid question.” Personally, I think they say that in order to make students feel better about themselves and not feel self conscious when it comes to asking questions. I know most of the time, students always seem afraid to ask questions. They always feel like they will sounds stupid. The thing is, it’s not always students that ask the stupid or ride questions, or even think they have stupid or rude questions. Everyday, out in the adult world, this happens too. People like to ask a lot of questions, that’s a given. Most people ask questions that come across as rude and they don’t even know it. Usually these “rude” questions are asked based upon assumptions. Most of the time, those assumptions are wrong and offend the person who receives the question. Here is a good example.

Back when I was in Caribou, I was in Walmart and I saw one of my cousins there. I hadn’t seen her for a few years and she looked pregnant, so I figured I’d ask. The thought of one of my cousins having a baby was pretty exciting. So I said “Wow Sammi, are you pregnant? Looks like you’re a couple months along.” She seemed to be really surprised that I asked that question. Her mouth dropped and she said very loudly, “NO I AM NOT!!” She found it quite rude, therefore I apologized. WOW was that a bad idea. I was only 12 so she understood that I really didn’t know any better, but she made sure I wouldn’t do it again. I definitely got an earful from her. It’s definitely something that I am not going to do again. One piece of advice I can give to any male out there, never do what I did. If you do do it, don’t freak out. Mistakes happen all the time. I’m sure the woman you’d say that to would NOT appreciate that, but it’s just a simple mistake.

I felt pretty bad after that happened. She got really upset just because I assumed something and asked about it. You could definitely say I was rude. I did learn my lesson though. I learned that I just need to watch what I say, and don’t jump to conclusions. After I apologized, and became a total suck up for about 10 minutes, she totally understood, and told me it was alright. That actually made me feel a lot better. Especially since I thought I had pretty much destroyed her self-esteem. The funny thing is, I just saw her about a year ago. She happened to be pregnant! I never asked how far along she was because I was too scared to have a repeat of the last situation with her and pregnancy. She saw the look on may face and remembered what had happened before. She reassured me that she was in fact pregnant, and even told me the details and everything.

Personally though, I do believe there are stupid/rude questions out there. To me, what makes a question stupid, is asking it when the answer is either obvious, or right in front of you. Other than that, there is nothing wrong with being curious and asking questions, or just trying to better understand something. When it comes to rude questions, some of the time they are not meant to be rude. You wouldn’t think that the simplest things could be found rude by some people. All you have to do is ask a simple question and they will find it offensive. Honestly, that’s just how our society is becoming. We just need to adapt, and watch what we say. It never feels good ruining someone’s day. (Unless they deserve it.) In the end, we all just need to be nice, think before we talk, or ask a question. We also need to think before we act. There are a lot of people who have a hard time doing that, me being included. We’re all human, and we all make mistakes. Let’s just accept everyone.

Photo by Ed Yourdon on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA