Frustrated with Dad’s Silly Questions

A 35-year-old son is frustrated with his dad asking needless questions in their conversations. Advice columnist Eric Thomas redirects the son’s thinking.

UPDATED MAY 11, 2026, WITH A READER REPLY TO SILLY QUESTIONS

Dear Eric:

I’m 35 years old with a dad who is 67. We talk frequently about business, sports and politics. We talk just by ourselves and as a group with my wife and mother.

The issue is that my dad asks me questions that are simple to look up online. They very often do not relate to the conversation and are silly.

I have brought up my issue with him doing this before and his response is “it gives us something to talk about” and that there would be nothing to talk about if we lived by the motto “don’t ask it if you can find the answer on Google.”

He has the newest iPhone and knows how to use it well. When he asks me questions, if I don’t know the answer, I google it and share, but I get frustrated. After one or two times I get short and want to end the conversation quickly. Any advice to make our conversations more stress free is much appreciated.

– Not Google

Dear Not Google:

Flawed though his methods may seem, I think your dad’s heart is in the right place and I’d encourage you to think about it in a different way. Though you have a good conversational relationship, there’s still clearly something in him that feels the need to add more material to keep the conversation going. Maybe it’s something that’s really lacking in your talks, maybe it comes from an insecurity that he has. It’s not for me to say. But try to think of these questions as offerings. He wants to engage with you, and that’s a gift.

Now, not all gifts are what we want, exactly. See if you can find some interest in the search for answers. Try asking him questions about the results or ask him to find it and inform you instead. There’s also something to be said for a long deep dive into Wikipedia. A simple question like “Who was Princess Grace of Monaco married to?” can lead to all manner of other factoids and curiosities. So, maybe the next time he asks, give him the simple answer and follow-up with some trivia that fascinates you.

Most importantly, however, every time you find yourself getting annoyed, see if you can reframe the request in your mind. It may help if you think of every benign question as a way of your father saying, “I like talking to you and I want to keep doing it.”

A reader reply to the son frustrated with his dad

Dear Eric:

I am writing in response to the letter from the son who is tired of having to Google the answers to questions from his dad (“Not Google”).

My husband and I have been together for 25 years. My family used to comment frequently about our conversations, that it was amazing we could talk about everything and nothing for hours and be so pleased.
But time and life marched on. My husband and I have grown apart. Recently I’ve really struggled to get something back that we can hold onto, and I have focused a lot of my efforts on rebuilding our conversations.

In the last decade or so, my husband has developed a healthy addiction to the supercomputer in his pocket. If I try to start a conversation, he will whip out Google and immediately end it with a definitive “answer.” This bothers me to no end.

I have asked my husband to stop pulling out his phone during our conversations and it’s something we argue about (unfortunately). He feels like there is access to the answer, so why shouldn’t we just get it? It’s just from reading Not Google’s letter that I realized what my point is: the goal of a good conversation is the journey, not a particular destination.

– Not Looking for Google

Dear Not Looking:

Thank you for sharing your experience. I hope that you’re able to recapture some of the ease you found in early conversations with your husband. I want to applaud you for not settling for something less than what you want. Every relationship goes through its changes, just as the people inside change. We owe it to ourselves and to each other to keep being creative and curious about how to maintain connections that matter to us.

You may also appreciate using conversational prompts, like the card games Where Should We Begin by Esther Perel or The { } And by a company called Skin Deep. You can even write your own prompts, based on things you used to enjoy discussing or memories you share.

R. Eric Thomas (he/him) is a national bestselling author, playwright, and screenwriter. His accomplishments include “Eric Reads the News,” a daily humor column covering pop culture and politics, serving as the interim Prudie for the advice column “Dear Prudence,” and “Congratulations, The Best Is Over.”

Send questions to eric@askingeric.com or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.

©2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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