Don't Ask

Because you might be afraid of the answer or of the reaction the answer might create not only in you but also in the person you're interrogating.

For a spell there (abracadabra) I was a little afraid of asking for advice and I wasn't even talking to a cursed jones played by a sly Foxx. The advice would come and it would be good and sound and not remotely surprising or telling. The problem with asking for advice is that I most often asked for it as a form of validation for what I either knew to be true, an excuse for the truth I wanted to avoid or a comfortable lie told between friends in full understanding that maybe half truths were not all bad.

Now I'm over it and I'm being honest about asking people questions.

What do you want to do? Would you like to have a drink? Do you want to run away with me? From me?

Even better is when you get to ask questions with your eyes and if you know the other person as well as they know you and then the sweetest thing is to be able to smile with your eyes, frown with your nose and point with your tongue (Panamanians actually point with their lips).

....

Yes, me too.

Growing up I was a Third. I was Ender (the term Die and Go). I wasn't ender in the literal sense for I am neither smart enough nor am I nearly accomplished enough to claim such moral rectitude as that kid had. Nor have we been nearly vanquished from existence by bugs. We are the bugs but that's a debate for another forum. And I wanted to be him in the questions I asked - being deep without coming across as vacuous or superficial or inane. One time in chemistry, wondering out loud whether or not you could reason out the list of formulas we studied down the hall in physics through a careful understanding of the little negative signs we called electrons I flirted dangerously with the possibility of making a smart question.

Now I do research and toe the line from time engaging excitedly in rabbit holes and (sometimes, thought hopefully not too often) circular argument trying to reason whether or not a snake can eat its own tail continuously. Also, balance (sheets) matter.

....

But rest assured, if i'm not asking it's not because I don't want to know. It's a combination of the fact that I'm not feeling lucky and it feels like Jeeve's has been out of business for quite some time now. It's a combination of the fact that everyone who knows wonders how I don't.

How could you not know? Because I know that if it has not come up then it hasn't come up because you appreciate my silence and dearth of interrogatory remarks. Or if you don't, you haven't brought it up. Because I'm afraid that if I do there might simply be a slight look of fear in your eyes.

So for now.

Don't Tell.