What's a question you dread being asked?

When was your last relationship? 😑

so... what happened to the servers?

Believe it or not, "What's your favorite book?". That's a pretty innocuous question, right? But one that frequently ends up topping the list is Finnegans Wake. It's... look, here's the first paragraph (don't worry; it's long in the public domain):

"riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.

Sir Tristram, violer d’amores, fr’over the short sea, had passencore rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: nor had topsawyer’s rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse to Laurens County’s gorgios while they went doublin their mumper all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to tauftauf thuartpeatrick not yet, though venissoon after, had a kidscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all’s fair in vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. Rot a peck of pa’s malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface."

That's not exactly even English, is it? An extremely brave Japanese man once produced a Japanese translation (and proved that not all courage relates to physical or social danger); I can only imagine what THAT conversation with his agent must've been like. The book is written in that half-asleep dream language, but that on top of the ultracompound words it contains; "thuartpeatrick" has dozens of common interpretations, some of which require having knowledge of nine different languages to understand. To get much out of the book, you need a solid grasp of Irish, English, and Danish histories, plus a wide web of linguistic knowledge. Even if you have that, though... look, there are people who seek out difficult books for the challenge. Heck, I'm one of them. But if you read the book the way you'd conquer an ancient city, it will defeat you. If, on the other hand, you read it the way you'd explore an ancient city, you might actually enjoy it.

So you need lots of knowledge and the brainpower to make use of it, plus the intellectual humility to understand that directly challenging the book WILL result in it beating you. Not many people have both, and the vast majority of those who try reading it will give up, often just a few pages in (Sir Tristram up there? The first guy mentioned in the book? He's never mentioned again, at least not by that name- there are still major debates in the fandom over who certain characters are). But it makes for a fascinating experience, as well as a fascinating story, for those whose minds can grasp it without grasping. And let's just say that when Joyce described it as "one of the greatest works of engineering" (not literature or even art, but engineering) ever made, he wasn't wrong...

So I end up having to say "It's one of the greatest books ever written, and you should probably never read it", and that just makes people mad.