The wrong question in Normal entries

On TV or in the movies the sage teacher archetype or the arch nemesis will use the line “That’s the wrong question.” In real life the wrong question gets asked all the time and is rarely pointed out. There’s the mundane sort of rhetorical question “How’re you today?” or it’s dozen or so variations, part of what makes it wrong is the rhetorical part. A little bit of fucking empathy and you could ask the same question with a slight lead and sincerity, or, you know, not ask it at all.

There’s things like the less mundane but common wrong question “Do you know how fast you were going?” Part of what makes it the wrong question is that it’s a yes or no question. Most folks say yes or no and then immediately go into an excuse of some kind. That makes it the wrong question and a trick question. No implies you set out with faulty equipment, or, you’re driving a deadly weapon but not paying attention. You don’t have an excuse the cop hasn’t heard, but, knowing you’re likely to give one, the right question is “Why are you breaking traffic laws in front of a cop?”

Most medical forms ask the questions wrong, insulting both the patient and support staff. Someone had to do the busy work of asking questions and put a box next to them and calling your checked boxes a family history. For me personally it means having to explain why I’m not a heart patient because I checked off the boxes. With interns it means a more detailed explanation than “Do I look like I have Marphans?” There’s no reason you should know what that is, but the answer is no, I don’t look like I have marphans. The insulting part to the patient is that no one wants to read a family history. A blank page with a singular request to state pertinent family history would work. And yeah, a lot of folks will leave shit out, but they will with the boxes too, and having my treatment centered around multiple choice questions, wrong questions, is insulting.

There’s also the sort of wrong question where the asker would really like to ask the right question. Empathy training, shut up it’s a real thing, teachs you to repeat what you heard (e.g. “I’ve been cutting myself” “what I hear is you want to cause yourself pain.”) Some people take well to this training. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with them. If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of that, you don’t feel listened to, you feel parroted. Along the same lines is the sexual questions, it leads to some murky waters because you don’t want to not communicate. Things like “what do you like?” are often the wrong question for one or two different reasons. If they have a really good answer you feel a bit naïve or if they are slow to answer you’ve just asked what worked in the past — that same thing that worked with another partner, well, something went wrong or you wouldn’t be there, or, you know, you might be over your head in a different way. Incidentally, over your head is sometimes the answer to that question.

Ok, I write a lot of entries that get lost in … just get lost. Unfinished, unloved, unwashed, that sort of shit. Not that they should be posted, but, fuck it, this one is done.