Being somewhat similar, I sympathize. I just tell them that I spent the time relaxing all weekend (regardless of what I actually did) and it seems to satisfy people.
(In spite of the stereotype, I'm always surprised to see how few genuine "introverted coders" there actually are in the industry and how unsympathetic the rest are.)
More people than you think follow this advice, which just leaves us with misunderstood anonymous social interactions.
It's OK if you don't want to spend the time to explain the nuance of your personal existence, but do understand that there is nuance in everyones existence. Expecting that the other person you are talking to "won't get it" is just blatant egotism.
Taking time to express what's important to you, and why, can be a very constructive thing for those who want to listen. The OP advocates empathy, and this is where it comes from. In my personal pursuit of empathy, I've had to filter out responses from people like you, and try to see beyond the untruthful statements in an attempt to understand what they are really saying. Shyness is one thing, but a pattern of lies and deceit are indicative of fundamental imbalance.
If you're having a hard time expressing why it's important to you, consider introspection; is it really important to you? If you don't come away from a day, or week, or weekend with something to tout when prompted, I dare say "you're doing it wrong".
I'm certainly not saying that I have something to be proud of every day, but that I'm honest with myself when I don't, and will express to others that I likely accomplished less than them in a given period. No lies necessary, and the other humans around you are given an opportunity to see your similarities, instead of some false iron gate of awesomeness.
I am not sure you have a lot of empathy if you automatically assume people want to be asked that question. I hate it if colleagues without kids ask me about my weekend because I believe that the joy of fatherhood breeds extremely boring stories for those who don't share it. I just don't want to feel lame telling you about how cute my daughters were.
Or if I am bustling with joy because the wife and I managed to sneak in an evening of kinky sex between bringing the kids to bed and work on monday. THAT's what I am thinking about and THAT's not what I want to tell you. So I invent some stupid story just so you are satisfied.
It's OK if colleagues which I know well and with whom I have a kind of bond ask things like that. But not as a conversation starter or to create such a bond.
And the list of people who cannot stand questions like that goes on: those with depression for whom every weekend is just a period of grayness, those with social anxiety...
"That question" need not be singled out as an outlier; what we're talking about is casual conversation.
Inventing a story, rather than truthfully explaining that you "enjoyed spending time with your wife and daughters" sounds sick to me.
You have a bond with everyone else already: we are humans. There is no prerequisite.
As someone who identifies with both depression/anxiety and positivity toward my accomplishments, in addition to a definite introversion, I reiterate my last paragraph from above: stop lying to yourself and others. If you had a simple weekend, where is the shame in admitting it?
If it was bad enough that you can't admit it, use that to fuel your development instead of pacifying it.
You don't have to talk about things that other people think are fun. The point is to bring up something that can get you excited and animated. If what you call "work" does that for you, then I'd love to hear about it.
You might like to hear about such things, but most people only want to hear about weekend activities they consider "fun" (e.g., going out drinking) or "normal" (e.g., doing stuff with the kids). If you say you spent the weekend learning something new, most people will act like you're boring and perhaps even make nasty comments like "you must be fun at parties" (like someone in this thread did).
I hear where you're coming from. I used to feel this way, and I sometimes catch myself falling back into this thought pattern.
But now I try to be as open as is practically reasonable about my interests and hobbies. You'd be surprised how receptive some people can be. And those who react negatively are filtering themselves out of further interaction.
I have a coworker & friend who baits me into conversations like these. One time at lunch I realized near the end that I had monopolized most of the conversation. I'm the class introvert who by nature doesn't say much but rambles given the right topic. So I started to apologize and he replied: "Jonathan, that's why I asked you the question."
Not all people are looking for their own words echoed back to them. Like the OP who suggested this advice in the beginning, some people are really interested in seeing things from different viewpoints.
I don't think it's an all or nothing proposition. If you don't know someone very well then it's likely they are just looking for small talk. In that case whether or not they are interested in the topic, they aren't looking for something that is going to turn into a deep conversation at that moment. There are ways to probe for this though, just give a high-level summary like "just did some work on my side project" or similar where you give them an opening to ask a question and go deeper. This gives an easy out to end a conversation gracefully; if an actual grownup gives a snarky response like "you must be fun at parties", that person has way worse social skills then they think they do, and in all likelihood has some pretty severe security issues.
Talking about normal/fun activities like you described are safe conversation topics that you can use with nearly anyone. If you don't know much about someone, then these topics are easy ways to get a conversation going and learn more about each other. Once you do know someone a bit better, you can tailor your conversations to more specific interests that you both share. A work colleague would probably be interested in talking about patches you submitted to open source projects or research papers that you read even though 99% of the general public probably wouldn't be interested.
I don't know exactly why the other commenter said "you must be fun at parties," but I'd imagine it's because the parent commenter deflected from talking about things he actually wanted to talk about. Being fun doesn't have much to do with the content of what you talk about. It has more to do with you showing genuine interest and excitement for the things you do. If you don't like watching movies or playing video games, then it's very difficult to have a fun conversation about those things. CiPHPerCoder listed four things he enjoys doing over his weekends. Those topics are definitely not mainstream, but they do overlap with my interests. I would love to have a conversation about those things with him because it also adds to the variety of conversations I get to have.
> CiPHPerCoder listed four things he enjoys doing over his weekends. I would love to have a conversation about those things with him because it also adds to the variety of conversations I get to have.
Sorry, would have responded sooner but HN's rate-limits kicked in.
> If you don't like watching movies or playing video games, then it's very difficult to have a fun conversation about those things.
I do enjoy those activities, but I accepted a lot of responsibility (especially with making secure PHP code-- a feat some infosec folks claim is inherently impossible) and intend to finish what I started. That means missing out on a lot of great movies (Warcraft, Zootopia) and video games (OverWatch) that my friends are all able to enjoy.
Ultimately, I believe the work I'm doing today will make a difference tomorrow. Whether I'll be able to capture any of that value for myself remains to be seen.
If I'd asked you that question, and this was your answer, I'd probably have asked you all about the papers you'd been reading, what kinds of issues you ran into reviewing other people's source code, and the what and why of the projects you were improving. I'm sure I'm not alone in that.
That is fine. Talk about that. The point isn't to tell someone what is exciting, it is about making connections. Perhaps you read a research paper on a topic the other person has an interest in. Perhaps you contributed to a project they use in their spare time, or could use on a side project.
I empathize and find your weekend activities relatable. Answer a question about your weekends with that and you might just find someone else who spends their free time "being productive". :-)
When I'm asking this to the junior engineers on the team I'm usually trying to tease out what they think is fun or what their non-work interests are. I have many of them that are over engaging at work (they're achievers) or having trouble adjusting to a new city without as many of the forced social situations of college. Me asking this is to get to know more about you so I can a) talk with you about non-work things, b) learn a bit more about you, c) offer advice when I see self imposed burn out approaching.
If all you do is work work then I think you should probbably re-adjust a bit on the weekends or you'll narrow focus too or you're just working too hard. If you're doing side projects, I'm an engineer too, I LOVE to hear about that stuff. It's why I read hackaday and hacker news.
Quite right. In a one-on-one conversation, I know how to conduct myself to make it less awkward for the other person, but I still feel like I'm lying by omission when I answer questions like that.
Then don't answer it in the traditional fashion: turn it into a joke. "What did I do this weekend?" "I gave birth to a live baby zebra." It'll make people laugh (or at least smile), they'll think well of you and you never actually do tell them what you did for the weekend.
Another tactic is to say "not much, what about you?" People love talking about themselves.
Well, for me it's not usually work, but it's still "work". It's fixing faucets, and trimming bushes, and cleaning out rain gutters, and keeping cars maintained. Much of a weekend is what I need to do, not what I want to do.
Most of what I do can be classified as "work".