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No one likes talking to their Uber driver. I don’t care how much of a social butterfly you are, Uber has been around long enough that by now even the most conversational person in the world is sick of the following:
“Hi, are you John?”
“Yep. Uhh, I know I punched it in already but I’m going to 1816 East 6th Street.”
“Got it. You meeting friends out there or what?”
“Yeah, grabbing a few drinks. Friday, AM I RIGHT?”
“I feel that, brother. As soon as I’m done with this shift I’m headed straight to the bar.”
“Oh, nice how long you been driving for Uber?”
This is cookie cutter stuff for an Uber trip, and it only gets worse after you ask the dreaded “how long have you been driving” question.
You talk about the bar or apartment building you’re going to, ask the guy how long he’s been driving, and then listen to him tell you some story about how he’s a month away from finishing a screenplay for Paramount. I don’t mean to be rude, but after your one hundredth Uber ride this just becomes really stale, forced, and tiresome.
It’s gotten to a point where I have topics that I know won’t elicit a response, thereby relieving me of having to participate in this bullshit small talk that everyone feels like they have to have with their driver. Here are some of the best ways to get your Uber driver to stop talking to you and get you to your destination in peace. All of them should be said right as you’re entering the vehicle, just after the driver asks you your name.
“Hey, you mind if I plug my phone in? I wanna listen to this death metal band called Dying Fetus. Seeing them later on this month.”
This one should have been pretty obvious. No one’s going to try and talk to you when you throw this banger on in the ‘09 Prius you’ve just been picked up in. Fir,st of all you won’t be able to hear yourself think, much less be able to ascertain anything that’s being said in the front seat of the car.
Secondly, your driver is going to be so disturbed by the lyrics and insane guitar solos that he’s going to have his eyes on the road, probably speeding to the bar he’s dropping you off at out of fear that you’re going to make him pull over so you can harvest his organs and eat them in front of him while he slowly bleeds out.
“Actually, this isn’t a bar I’m going to. Just a BDSM convention that’s being HELD at a bar. Need to pick up some new assless chaps for my submissive and then I’m really hoping to get a cigarette ashed on my tongue later while I simultaneously ejaculate.”
I know this one will be hard for a lot of people just because it’ll be tough to say without maniacally laughing, but if talking about BDSM doesn’t shut your Uber driver up nothing will.
“There was just so much blood…I didn’t mean to hurt anyone but…”
Nothing stalls a conversation out quite like implicating yourself in a gruesome murder. Was it your ex-lover? Your former best friend who finished off that baggie of coke without you? These are questions that will be racing through your driver’s head as he tries to figure out the fastest possible route to get you the fuck out of his car. Enjoy your ride in silence while your Uber driver turns pale, runs red lights, and nervously looks behind his shoulder to make sure you don’t have the murder weapon still on you.
“My girlfriend literally just broke up with me. That was her house we just left. I’m meeting my friends at the bar but honestly, all I want to do right now is cry.”
Nobody wants to talk to you about your ex, man. That’s day one stuff. Your best friend may sit on a couch with you and listen to you talk about your ex, but that’s really about it.
Everyone else just wants you to get over it so you stop bringing her up when you’re at the bar three cocktails deep. An Uber driver isn’t your friend. Doesn’t matter how nice he/she is, they’ll more than likely just turn the radio up or start talking to someone on an earpiece in a different language so that they don’t have to ask you how this breakup went down.
All of these topics will allow you put your headphones in a mere thirty seconds after entering the car, and you’ll be able to listen to something soothing like John Mayer or Sufjan Stevens (or Dying Fetus if you’d really like to get the party started) without feeling like a dick for not talking to your driver. Silence is golden, and so are these conversation enders. .
Image via Unsplash
Respond
jduda@grandex.co
I lived in Omaha when Uber first showed up and for some strange awesome reason a bunch of really hot med students decided start driving for them. For the first like two months you had a about a 60% chance of getting a hot future doctor as your pickup, it’s the only time I’ve ever wanted to stay and talk with the drivers.
She probably caught on after your third destination change to a location across town
“oh crap it looks like I left my wallet at the bar, can you turn around so I can pick it up? While we are there do you wanna swing in and grab a drink this place has the best margaritas?”
enter car with a panty-ho over your head while holding a silenced Uzi and a canvas bag and then yell “just drive”
Just one “panty-ho”? Or a plural panty-ho.. a panty-hose….if you will.
You’re a douche
Agreed. But you’re a liar if you tell me you enjoy this song and dance with your driver every time you order an Uber
There should be a “rider prefers silence,” option when they pick you up.
I mean you don’t have to enjoy it as long as you can be a tolerable normal human who does social interactions and can actually have a conversation with someone instead of just ignoring anyone you don’t know and being a total millennial.
Those damn millennials!
As one of the few non-Spanish speaking residents in Miami it is rare I have a full conversation with my Uber driver. Driver picked me up Friday to head to happy hour and spoke very little English. On my way to the bar we got stuck a drawbridge (happens often). While we’re sitting there, Toto’s Africa comes on the radio and the two of us sang the whole thing together. That beats conversation.
Pretty sure this is just an ad to push Duda’s band, Dying Fetus.
Crazy, that’s actually my Christian name.
It’s fairly easy to strike up a conversation with anyone; them being your Uber driver doesn’t change that, and that’s the mindset you need to have. Talk to them, anyone really, as if they’re your friends and be at ease like you’ve known them for years, and ask them different questions and show interest.
It’s a better lifestyle than being a misanthropic prick toward everyone just for garner traffic on a millennial yuppie website.
Nah, making small talk with strangers sucks. I’d rather dick around on my IPhone in silence.
Name checks out.
co-sign
Eh, it’s really more the fact that it’s effectively an elevator conversation: you’re trapped having it no matter what. And it’s not as if cabbies are often interested in talking to you, so I don’t see the point in changing that mindset just because it’s an Uber.
I guess you just have to have the personality for it then.
Man I can’t believe I just saw a Dying Fetus reference on PGP. I would have no idea what you were talking about if it weren’t for a kid I knew my sophomore year of college that used to blast them in his room at all hours of the day. Would love to know where that guy ended up post grad.
Or, you know, just get into the car with headphones already on.. Take one out, make sure it’s the right car, then put it right back in
Swim
Just going to remind everyone that Micah and Ross had a way better take on this, s/o to RBP