I Can't Answer That Question

Has someone asked you a question simply because they want to hear your answer for entertainment purposes?  You ever have that question you feel like you are being pressured to answer a question one way or another but you can't?  Either that or you're afraid it will come out wrong?

Me too.  I get that a lot more than some folks, as during my school years, people became aware of my social ignorance as I wasn't hanging with the crowds that used slang or double meanings.  Back in the late 90s, for some reason that I still can't wrap my head around today (oh snap, there goes a double), people used the word 'staple' to describe others.  So I was asked "Do ya think this guy is a staple?  Do you think you're a staple?"  My answer?  "I'm not a thing that holds papers together.  I ain't a paper clip either."  The kids looked confused and concluded that I was, well, a 'staple' or something.  Or there was one time I was asked the question about how many bases I ran when the person in question knew I had been talking to this girl the previous night.  I didn't know how to answer it, so I jokingly said all of them.  Combined with my dry delivery, I was taken a little more seriously then I expected.  There was shock and a possibly sarcastic high five, but I had no clue what happened.

What I'm getting at is not as much the terms themselves as whether or not to answer the questions.  In later years I have begun to keep mum, as most of the time I will get chuckled at if people catch on to my weirdness.  So I decide to cope using one of two methods:

1. I mention that I don't have an answer (or 1a, that I simply ignore the question).
2. I give them this really weird answer which is irrelevant to the question and throws off the person who is asking such a dumb question anyway.  It's funny to me when I say "well, you expect me to answer it because of your own dull amusement, since you know I won't be able to give an answer that isn't ridiculous.  So I think I'll have a little fun and run on.  You may laugh, but I will forget you even asked.  Memory is selective.  Since I'm a mini-professor and all, you want to sit down for a lecture?  I mean, if you ask that question you probably want a lecture, right?"  I take the chance that I won't get beat up.

I have not been asked as many of these questions now since most of the world has matured.  Nowadays I get asked questions by friends for a reaction on a rare occasion, but in the way that any NT would...or so I think.    People have done it today, but over time I also realized who my true friends were, and they know their questions are stupid but they only rag on the random things I say (which my old roommates coined as 'Vossisms').

However, you never know if a kid in school will be asked a particularly humiliating question.  Sometimes I would have been best to ignore them in the day, as the people asking these questions weren't worth anyone's time.  Thing is, even if you don't know how to answer the question, then just don't even attempt to answer it.  This might leave those 'cool folks' in the dust; you never know.