Max Marmer

Most people only ask the “what” questions. What are you doing lately? What’s up? What did you do yesterday? What are you going to do this summer? What are you studying? It takes a rare breed of person to ask the “why” and “how” questions.

The “why” and “how” questions are much more interesting and elevated. But as a basic rule of thumb if someone only asks ‘what’ questions that’s probably the only kind of questions they can answer without reflecting for the first time.

Why are you focusing on what you are lately? You went surfing yesterday? How did you learn to surf? How did you finance your trip to Europe? Why are you studying physics? Reframing your go-to questions in conversation from “what’s” to “why’s” and “how’s” will make the conversation more insightful. I’m not sure if it will make you more likable, though. It will for the people who actually reflect on their actions and will be happy they finally have a chance to share.  But it probably doesn’t do any damage to ask someone who doesn’t reflect on their choices and actions, because they will either take it as a challenge and engage, or they will shrug their shoulders and the conversation will effortlessly move back to “what” like nothing happened. So in some sense it will be a selection mechanism for meeting other interesting people.

“What” also seems to be a question that is subconsciously egotistical. After the questioner receives an answer he has the feeling that he knows you and what you’re up to and can share it with other people. That person who was previously masked in uncertainty can now be put into a box and the lid can be sealed.

Personal Anecdote

When people at my high school asked where I was going to school and I told them I was taking a gap year, they immediately asked, “Oh where are you going?” While I will be traveling some during my year off it is not my focus. My focus is on number of entrepreneurial pursuits and learning from “Real World University”.

The path I’m taking is unconventional and the unexpectedness sometimes seemed to spark people out of rut that the only viable path the future held was AT LEAST 4 more years of boring school work before doing anything interesting. My response injected a tinge of uncertainty into their worldview, which slightly intrigued them, but only because it was a box they needed to fill. I felt most of the time these inquiries from my peers were insincere. They didn’t want to know how or why I’m doing what I’m doing, they just wanted to resolve their uncertainty. Most of the time I indulged and gave a watered down mundane answer, “startup stuff”. I saw the wheels turning in their head, “Oh technology, okay, I wouldn’t want to do that anyway *remain on course, nothing to see here*. And we both went on with our day.

But one time in English class I saw just how much tension is created when one of these boxes is left ajar. We were in breakout discussion groups and the conversation wondered to where we were all going to college and then it was my turn to share. And I thought these were people whose perspective I actually wanted to hear, but I knew I’d be interrupted due to time limitations of class and if I started telling them what I’m doing but didn’t finish, the box would be as good as closed and they wouldn’t ask me about it later. So I told them if they really wanted to know what I’m going to be doing, they could ask me about it outside of class. But they wanted me to tell them NOW. “Just tell us! Max, C’mon why are you being so difficult! It’s really not that hard.” They were laughing not yelling but in a very annoyed kind of way. Eventually they got so loud that the teacher asked what was going on and almost in unison said, “Max won’t tell us what he’s doing with his year off.” After they wouldn’t accept my offer to talk about it after class I had been speaking in abstract provocative platitudes to mess with them. “I’m leapfrogging 6 years of life” “I’m proving competency not signaling it” etc etc.

The uncertainty was pulling at their heart strings. I kept offerring to tell them more outside of class but they didn’t actually want to know, they just wanted to close the box.