Closed Mouths Don't Get Fed

I started a conversation with my mom about how I always ask questions. Recently in self-examining I noticed that not only do I ask a lot of questions, but oftentimes when I do people become aggravated. My mom recalled this scenario:

A person says “I hate this show” & I respond “oh what show”. The person could not tell me the name of the show, anything about the show, or what he/she doesn’t like about the show. In my opinion a person should be able to explain his/her feelings.

Then my mom said, “He was just trying to make conversation.” She continues to suggest that I not ask people questions and just say “oh really”. But if I just say “oh really” then what would be the point of having a conversation? She had no answer. So then I said to her, maybe I should lie & say, “me neither”. Maybe I should disregard the comment, and proceed to discuss shows I don’t like.

I basically decided to take my own advice: When I used to teach, one of the first things I told my students was, “Closed mouths don’t get fed. Please don’t be afraid to ask questions.”

One of my good friends said that I “always make [her] think about things [she] never really gave any thought to before whether [she] replies or not. So [she] really appreciates it”.

I have decided that there is nothing wrong with me asking questions but there is a huge problem with not being able to explain your feelings. I’m not saying that anyone owes me an explanation, but I think everyone owes an explanation to him/herself.