Annoying as Hell

There's a fine line between politeness and bulls***ness. I couldn't quite tell which is which. Standard questions are put forth as a polite way to get a conversation going. But I wonder if "polite" is a correct depiction, because they seem to bug me to no end.

When I was a kid, adults used to ask the same set of questions over and over again. "How old are you?" "What grade are you in?" "Where do you go to school?" These questions bored me. If they were so interested, why couldn't they just memorize the answers? I thought.

At this point in my life the questions frequently issued for my benefit would be: "Are you married?" and "Where do you go to work?" These questions are just as mundane as the ones asked when I was younger. And they irked me more, not in themselves, but because of people's reactions towards my answers.

For your information, I'm a freelance translator. I know this is not the kind of job someone with a degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences usually takes. But I honestly can't stand people who said, "Why don't you work in a job relevant to Pharmaceutics? It's such a waste." Give me a break. Could anyone please show me one person that applies absolutely one hundred percent of the things they studied as student to the work they're doing? I bet they can't find any. And if school is all about getting a job, one needs not to bother. You need wits to become a super rich person, not a school diploma. As for why I choose a job seemingly unrelated to my education, that's my business. As if they really want to know why.

I also should mention that a surprising number of people don't understand what "freelance" means. That means I have to patiently explain to them that I'm not attached to a particular organization. But the part that makes me wonder if some people truly have a brain inside of their heads is when they asked--after I explained the above to them--again, "So, where do you work?" If there's one thing I can't put up with, it is stupidity that comes along with a lack of common sense.

Other comments that make my patience grow even thinner are: "Wow, aren't you bored? Working at home and all?" and "Why don't you look for something more stable?" The respond that I wish I have the guts to spurt out is: "As if you f****** care!" Every thing has its drawback, and I didn't comment on that aspect of their job, so why can't they just shut up?

But I guess what is bothering me the most is the fact that people who respond this way are the ones who don't know anything about me. They're not my friends or anything--we just happen to know each other due to accidental circumstances: same school, same acquaintances, that sort of thing. They don't care about me and, frankly, I don't care about them either. So why don't we all stop trying to be "polite" altogether?

Note: You might've already figured out that I'm not what you call a "nice" person. I'm not. I took the "What country hates you the most?" quiz in Facebook and my result was Switzerland. My temperament is so bad that even the good old Swiss dislike me.