Originally Posted by
lotalota
Thank you for the clarification. Does this issue just boil down to a lack of specificity in the question? To me, when someone asks me where I'm from I don't read that as anything other than where do you live. I suppose that's because I would never move anywhere else, not for love or money.
Lavalyn apparently seems to feel the same about this as I do. What I'm saying to you is "Please ask what you mean". However your comment that you would never move anywhere (so, you assume that people live now in the same place that they are from originally) is the very thing that makes your "Where are you from" question hard to answer.
When you say you're genuinly curious, I believe you, so I'm suggesting asking a question that will get you a better answer. "Where do you live" or "where did you grow up" both to me sound like better conversation starters if you then are going to ask follow-up questions about that place (rather than the less enlightened questions about stereotypes associated with those places!
).
Although some people may be uncomfortable I'm still going to be curious. The way I see it, they always have the right to say "I don't want to discuss that" or "I don't want to talk right now". I'll respect that. But I'm not going to hold myself back from meeting interesting people (one of the great joys of traveling) just because I don't know who might be made uncomfortable by what I consider to be a simple, general question.
There are questions that are so generic that it's hard to tell whether the person is really interested in the answer (in which case if I'm in a social mood I'd happily have a conversation with them) or if they are just making lame attempt to kill time. To me this one certainly is one that can be asked many different ways. It's right up there with "So, what do you do?" which might be a whole 'nother thread!