The Worst Conversational Question Ever

Over the last few weeks, I think I have made a big realization about what the worst conversational question ever is. It is the seemingly innocuous phrase: "So, what's new?"

I've traveled out of town and seen people that I haven't seen in a while, and obviously have gone out several times while in town and see people that I see pretty regularly. Regardless of the amount of time that has lapsed between our interactions, "What's New" has been a depressing conversation killer for me. Why? Well....

• It may place one of the people involved in the conversation in a very awkward position. I was talking to my friend Bryan who lives here in town and a few weeks had gone by between drinking sessions: "Man, China was awesome, it was incredible, I did [insert cool stuff to do in China here].....so, what's new with you?" Since the last time I had seen Bryan, I put on about 2.3 pounds and watched a shit ton of TV. I quickly changed the subject.
• It exposes just how few new/interesting experiences the people involved may have. My friend Kevin, who I hadn't seen in about three weeks, we traded standard conversation lines that could be inserted in any of potentially millions of conversations worldwide: "What's new with you." "Nothing". "Yeah, same here."
• It may result in ridiculous boredom for one of the people involved. In talking to your friends' spouses and/or your own co-workers, you inevitably get someone who thinks the things they are involved with are interesting and exciting, but they're really boring as hell, and if they would have stabbed you in your urethra rather than tell you the story, you would have been better for it: "Yeah, I like bought this new spaghetti sauce at the fancy grocery store, and the weirdest thing is that its consistency is not like regular spaghetti sauce, like Ragu or Prego or something. But like it tastes kinda the same, and yet I don't know how it would ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ..........................."
• It can call into question the very reason for your existence and the lack of purpose in your life. I recently traveled to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. I specifically made the trip to hang out with my longtime friend Dean who pilots helicopters in the Navy and will be shipping out to Iraq soon. One of us had cool stories about war games and preparation, working with Navy Seals (fucking seals!) and survival training. The other had equally interesting stories about his white collar soul sucking job.

The moral of the story is: do your homework. "What's New" is a lazy way to inquire about someone but really kills the conversation. Instead, know the person you're talking to well enough to ask more specific, less depressing questions. I am extremely lazy, so you know that I won't actually follow this advice - but YOU should.