Why start a conversation if you're not gonna follow up?
I am an avid user of the internet and a lot of software that goes with it, i.e. MSN Live Messenger and other chat-programs.
This shit happens to me all the time. Assholes, that I for some unbeknownst reason have on my contact list, start a conversation (I use this word in a loose sense here, since the word 'conversation' implies some interaction) with some stupid remark like "Hey what are you doing?".
Well, I am just sitting around with my balls in my hand waiting for dumbasses to ask me what I am doing. What the HELL does it seem like I am doing? I am online in some crappy, bugged chat-software, which means that I am firmly seated in front of a computer. What could I possibly be doing? Is it so hard to figure out? Take a guess, moron.
Usually, I play along and tell the people that ask me this what I am doing, in the false hope that they might give a shit and follow up with something half-smart to say. I am usually let down because my expectations are way too high.
This is a fictitious transcript of such a conversation:
Random asshole: Hey what are you doing?
Me: Chatting with some people and reading.
Random asshole: Ok, cool...
Why did you even engage in something slightly resembling conversation with me if that is all you're gonna say? Next time, please, shut the hell up or take some damn responsibility, use your brain and say something smart. Otherwise, it's not worth the effort. Stop pretending like you care what I am doing. If you did, you'd have something better to say than "ok" in response to what I am wasting my time with.
Sometimes I get fed up and ask these assholes if the really care about what the hell I am doing and that is the reason they ask, or if they just ask because it is a mindless move chiseled in to their dormant subconscious and they're too lazy and unimaginative to be asking something (preferably someone) else.
I never ask people what they're doing unless I'm going to use that as a starting point for developing the conversation in to something more interesting. I wouldn't because I am simply not interested, and I am not going to pretend that I am so that some asshole might like me, thinking that I give a shit about what they do and their life. You, your life, and what you do is boring and uninteresting; unless you are Peter Parker and have spider-like abilities. Which you are not.