[present tense]

2003.08.10: We need to talk

I'm increasingly bothered by the habit people have of prepending serious statements with the phrase "We need to talk", or "I have something that I need to tell you." Those phrases do nothing but make me feel pre-emptively defensive, guilty and all around bad, all before the conversation even starts.

I know that the point of "We need to talk" is to get my complete and undivided attention--to announce that this is a serious conversation. But that could be done with a simple "Hey...you got a minute?" which is much less confrontational and does not conjure up associations of "You're in big trouble" or "Let's just be friends".

Even worse is when people use "We need to talk" unnecessarily. As in "We need to talk...can I borrow a pencil?" If the topic is trivial, then we don't really need to talk and your insistance that we do only pisses me off. Just launch right in to whatever it is that you are going to say and don't introduce it with a false signifier of importance.

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