Well, I don’t know about you, but for me, someone’s refusing to address something they raised, particularly if the question asked is innocent, as it was here, is rude. It is most certainly rude where I’m from, unless there’s a good justification (which can be private!) for ignoring the question. But if it’s in fact that my judgement of ‘mildly sociopathic’ was offensive, then I guess I’ll just have to accept that ignoring someone else isn’t universally rude. Perhaps it’s just that we have different expectations as to a person’s right ‘not to answer’ or ‘not to engage’: where I was raised, one must answer unless a good justification exists, even if it doesn’t have to be explained to the asker; for you, perhaps, the burden is on the asker to provide a good reason for the other person to answer.
By the way, I typically do ‘read the room’, and it would definitely have been much easier to do so if this had happened in person. In general, I always anticipate whether or not what I’m about to say might be upsetting, and I observe the other party’s reaction when I do speak up. If body language or tone had clearly revealed to me that he didn’t want to discuss the question, I wouldn’t even have asked a second time, but in this instance, neither indicator was available. For the record, I did in fact decide not to ask again after my question was ignored a second time – so I might say that I managed to ‘read the room’ – but since like I said, ignoring an innocent question is rude in my book, especially in the middle of a conversation that’s already started, I was quite shocked and rather upset, particularly since I was just clarifying something he had raised. That’s why I’m here asking these questions.
For what it’s worth, my French friends say I’m excessively diplomatic, so it’s quite rare that I actually upset someone else, and since a response – even an evasive one – is a normal thing to expect in my experience (at least, in the cultures I experienced while growing up), I figured I should have expected one given that I did not ask my question with any ill intent, and I don’t think I took a belligerent tone either. Additionally, I felt that an evasive – and potentially completely honest – response was quite easy to find in this situation (i.e. ‘I don’t remember when it happened exactly’ or ‘I’m not sure’) while being perfectly satisfactory, so I was really quite surprised. I genuinely don’t think I phrased the question in a threatening manner or implied I was questioning his honesty or memory.
I guess I should have reiterated what I said in the first post (on another thread) in which I discussed this event: I didn’t intend to insinuate that Japan was unique in this respect, but rather wished to know if this applied as a communication strategy in Japan (i.e. ‘does this happen often in Japan?’ and not ‘does this happen only in Japan?’).
In any case, I greatly appreciate the fact that you make your feelings and preferences explicit, because it avoids confusion and helps the conversation move along, especially when communication occurs via text, which can obscure other indicators of unwillingness or discomfort. Thank you for making the effort.
Point-by-point responses
Guess I’m glad I’m not the only one? Would it be indiscreet to ask where this client was from? I’m now rather curious where this is common and acceptable, and where it isn’t. Where I’m from (Singapore), honestly, questioning and answering typically goes on until
A. The answerer implies that the questions are uncomfortable or uninteresting
OR
B. The answerer flat out says the questions will not or cannot be answered (this usually only happens if the asker is insensitive or if the answerer is direct, and is typically a last resort)
Option A usually involves changing one’s tone or beginning to answer the question before stopping halfway (very much like with「それはちょっと…」in Japanese). Another way of expressing it is this:
Yeah, that’s me when I get asked an awkward question. Every single time.
And yeah, so, that’s why I was so surprised: I thought most of my communication strategies overlapped with Japanese communication strategies, and that had been confirmed by my experiences up to that point earlier today. I’ve never had someone simply ignore me except when my original message/verbal statement is a wall of text/mass of spoken words. That wasn’t the case today: I had only sent two short messages since his last message, one of which contained the question.
I guess my takeaway should be that in Japanese culture, there may be a stronger obligation to provide a response that directly answers the question asked, and that someone asked a difficult question may feel put on the spot, thus making completely ignoring it a more comfortable option than giving an evasive response that lacks substance. (Once again though, I am surprised that one cannot simply employ the hesitant「それはちょっと…」strategy or the apologetic ‘sorry, I don’t know’ strategy, both of which are acceptable in my culture so long as the other party is not someone to whom an answer is owed e.g. a boss, parent or other figure of authority.)
The modern version of this is sudden ‘ghosting’, I guess. I’ve already experienced this multiple times in Singapore, so I’m quite comfortable with it, even if I don’t think it should be normalised. (I know that I’ve ended a friendship this way after sending a few pleasant final messages though, so I don’t think it’s necessarily improper; however, I would definitely have responded rapidly if the other party had decided to pick things up again.)
Yeah, I’ve heard about this. No critical thoughts beyond the fact that it must be shocking. Still, I know what it’s like for a marriage to fall apart (I’ve never been married, but I’ve seen it happen), so perhaps it’s understandable in some cases?
Nah, this is just normal in various cities: I don’t greet people in Paris unless they’re my neighbours or people I know otherwise. The only exception are people I need to talk to. In Singapore, it’s even worse: the assumption is that no one talks to anyone else unless they want something, so all such polite greetings are unwelcome unless they come from service staff or people one knows. It’s a little sad because honestly, the random greetings I get in France from time to time brighten up my day. However, I still completely understand the desire to be ignored by strangers since I’ve also had people greet me precisely because they wanted something.
Does this happen to you a lot? I’ve personally never seen this happen unless the person being ‘irrelevant’ or ‘inappropriate’ is doing so while everyone else is very engrossed in another topic. That or the new topic is too disruptive and makes no sense in context. Otherwise, the worst I’m used to is seeing someone being asked to hold a thought for later.
That sounds crazy, but is weirdly reassuring.
While I understand now, in all honesty, I tend to take a ‘middle ground’ approach unless I’m absolutely certain I can find the answer/fulfil the request, and I think people have seen me do it many times on these forums: I give a preliminary answer and point people in what I think is the right direction. I answer with only the knowledge I have on hand. Afterwards, if I have the time or am very interested in the question, I dig up a complete answer on my own and say, ‘OK, turns out I was able to find out more. Here you go.’
In my opinion, this approach is better for both the request maker and the request fulfiller: the request maker isn’t simply left hanging, and can potentially make some progress independently, while the request fulfiller is no longer under pressure to give a response of any kind and can choose to make whatever additional efforts he or she is willing to make. However, I guess the question I have now is… would this be considered wasting the request maker’s time in Japan? To me, I’m reducing the discomfort caused by being left hanging and also reducing their waiting time, but perhaps in Japan, a half-baked response is worse than no response at all? (My mother used to train people on the art of providing good service, and she’s very vocal about these things, so I’d like to think I was taught well, but perhaps what I’m used to doesn’t apply in Japan?)
Thank you very much for the reassuring conclusion and the tips. The second tip was common sense in Singapore too, but I guess I’ll have to try to adopt the first one unless the information I’m asking for is absolutely vital to me. I appreciate all your analysis.
