Is this an unwritten social rule?

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I was at a career event for my program (law). I try to go to as many of these as possible to practice socializing with the people, who are mainly upper-class and probably much more cognizant of social faux-paus than the lower-middle class I grew up around.

Anyway, I was talking to one of the partners of the firm (an older male), and he told me he went to my school. I asked him what year he graduated. Before he could answer, a classmate standing next to me said- very abruptly and loudly, like she was shocked- "you don't ask people that!" The partner laughed nervously. I apologized, he said "no, it's okay", and he answered the question.

The reason I figured this question was okay was because a) I had never heard of this rule before and I have done a lot of research b) the school always refers to its graduates by name and then graduating year number- like if we have a panel of speakers the ones from the school always have '79 or some other year next to the name.

Has anyone ever heard of this rule before? I asked some IRL friends and they said they'd only ever heard of this applying to older women.

Wow I've never heard of that being a no-no. *is just as confused*

Never heard that one b4 either . Closest thing I heard is to avoid asking someone their age (especially if its a girl...).

Thank you, I was so confused. Looks like I am not the only person who needs to work on his social skills.

It's possible that the unwritten social rule is "Don't ask someone their age." By asking the older guy what year he graduated, you could, by making a generalization, nail down his age pretty tightly.

However, I think that when you've established that you went to the same school, this is an ok question. If this person were close to your age, it would be almost an *expected* question -- and you'd be expected to follow up with "Oh, so you probably knew Whozit, and were there right after the varsity jello shot team won their third championship."

When you're talking with someone who is clearly quite a bit older than you, the question is perhaps less appropriate. A better follow-up might have been something on the order of "That's very interesting! Did you minor in paleontology?" This leaves the person room to say "No, that hadn't been invented yet." They can then continue the conversation in any way they wish.

The person who 'called you out' did neither you nor your fellow alum any favors. She drew attention to your statement, and left him with really no options. I bet the conversation ground to a halt after that.

Nope, you did nothing wrong. It was the person who tried to correct you.

Although I have AS, I know that your request was valid because you may or may not have known someone else in his age range that also attended your college. You might have had the follow up question, "Did you know so-and-so?" (Hypothetically).

An abstract way of evaluating the politeness of questions is to first think "Assuming they answer, what question will I ask, and is that polite? (Looking one move ahead, like in chess)(But don't look too many moves ahead, since the board will change, like chess)." It won't always work, but keeping that evaluation method in mind will generally reduce your impolite questions by 30% or more.

If I was in your position, I'd be inclined to think that the woman was deliberately trying to embarrass me. If such a social wrongdoing was commited by you, she should have pulled you aside and told you quietly instead of loudly blurting it out in front of everyone. She was rude; her social blunder there.

NTs are always coming up with some sort of "unwritten rule" to beat us over the head with. They unwrite all sorts of rules all the time just to use against us. We need to unwrite a few rules to beat them over the head with.