How to Deal with Curious People

Have you ever met someone who barely knows you but wants to know everything about you?

I have, multiple times. My last encounter of this kind took place today as one of my mother's acquaintances bumped into us on the street. After she learned who I was, she immediately started bombarding me with all sorts of questions. How old I was, where I worked, whether I was married or had children and how much I earned (topic on which she insisted twice) were just some of the questions she found natural. Coming from a small town, that small town in which we met, allowed me to understand here. It's not uncommon for people who are old and have always lived in a small community to behave like this. Nonetheless, it doesn't mean that her inquisitive nature wasn't annoying me.

It is normal to be curious and to want to learn more about the people surrounding you. However, there is often a thin line between someone's curiosity and the other person's intimacy.

How can you know when you are asking too much or you are stepping into a dangerous area where the other person feels uncomfortable? The answer is simple among educated people; you simply judge others by their reactions, mimic and tone and you get the necessary signals that tell you when to stop. However, these fine signs are often overlooked by people who are more ignorant and self-centered. With them, you are usually the victim and the one who has to use defence mechanism in order to protect your right to intimacy or simply avoid emberassing situations.

So, how do you deal effectively with curious people without compromising your principles by giving away too much information or harming them.

There are different strategies you can deploy and they all stem from your emotional intelligence.

First, people like these like talking just for the sake of doing so. Whether the conversation is about you or someone else oftem matters little to them. Therefore, you can try to switch the topic from your personal life to someone else's or a recent event that's been keeping everyone busy lately. However, don't go for boring subjects such as the weather or climate change as it probably won't work. These people feed off of other people's joy and sorrow and they often avoid conversation that is not juicy.

Secondly, another strategy that can help you duck akward questions is pointing the conversation towards your examiner. No matter what they ask you, ask the same question back and act interested. Curious people are often bored by their own existence and therefore feel flattered when someone wants to dig into their backyard.

Finally, there is no better way of escaping an unpleasant discussion than avoiding it altogether. If you don't feel like sharing your personal life with someone you're not quite fond of, tactfully get out of their way. Any excuse might work as long as you present it with a sense of emergency, be it an important meeting or simply the need to go shopping.

I don't know which of these strategies you used to tackle an inquisitive person. I personally made good use of all of them and aill probably continue to do the same in the future.

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