Testing, Testing... The Singles Forum REAL Personality Test!

Hey Everyone,

This thread is a bit of an experiment. After spending some time talking with chat friends about the results of various existing personality tests, I was thinking about some of the "Getting to Know You" threads we've had here in Singles the past few months.

I thought it might be interesting to expand upon that and find out a little bit more about each other's personalities. However, instead of answering 500 rounds of ambiguous or questions such as, "I am generally sometimes most definitely a positively positive person," how about if we try seeing how people say they would respond to various situations instead?

I originally had an idea for 3 different situations for people to reply to, but seeing as the Zombie Apocalypse thread turned out more like a Spiderman movie sequel (way too many plots going on at once!), I'm going to try just one story line and see how it goes.

So here's the situation:

* You have been asked to look after your friend's beloved goldfish for a week. During the time this little finned fiend is under your care, it sadly passes on to a bigger pond.

Do you:

1. Let your friend know right away!

2. Wait until your friend gets back, because you don't want to ruin their vacation.

3. Offer to buy your friend a new fish regardless of when you leak the bad news.

4. Remove the evidence, get a new fish, then place it in the bowl and let it happily swim free as if nothing happened, passing off this new fish as your friend's original, letting your friend believe THIS is his treasured aquatic companion.

PLOT TWISTS:

* If choosing answer #4, would you be more or less tempted to try to pass off a new fish as the old one if the fish were all one color and easy to replace, rather than a fish that had unique colors or markings and would be impossible to duplicate?

* What if the fish died... Because you forgot to feed it? Would you confess this to your friend, or pretend you had no idea why the little guy didn't make it?

Feel free to choose any and/or all answers that apply, and tell us WHY you would choose those answers (in other words, what's your reasoning behind your answers?) These answers are not absolute, of course -- just give us your own version of how you would handle such a situation. Answers can be both humorous or serious, as long as they're honest!

And no worries about being analyzed -- it's going to be interesting enough just reading people's answers.

In the above scenario you outlined I would chose option #4 so as to spare my friend the shock and grief on the loss of his or hers precious little Goldie.

I once inherited a thirty gallon fish tank, and kept it for many years. My boyfriend had been
crushed to death in a workplace accident, and his daughter asked me to look after the fish, so I did

Long ago I snuck a large goldfish into my sister's smaller fish tank to see what would happen
After dinner when she went up to her room, the whole house could hear her freaking out
My mother immediately wondered what in the world was going on, and I said I knew
I went upstairs and owned up to my prankery to calm my sister down
She thought one fish had eaten the others and grown huge

Her and I have been close all our lives I cried when my own beautiful little goldfish died
after it got stuck behind the pump, and had given up keeping fish until the 30 gallon tank...



I have not kept fish since then. If I was looking after someone else's goldfish when it died,
I would tell them after they got home so as to not interfere with their enjoyment of their
holiday, unless of course we were in communication and they specifically asked about it

Id definitely be honest and offer to either replace the fish or give them the money to compensate. Naturally I'd apologize a million times.

When it comes to when I tell them...If they ask about it while they are away...Id tell them...but if not I'd wait until they returned .

5. Let the friend know immediately and give a heads up (because I'm a good friend) that I'm going to sue for emotional distress from having to deal/witness passing of the goldfish.

Note to self: NEVER ask @christian74 for a favor, EVER!

I'm loving all the heartfelt answers, and @Magenta, love the beautiful throwback photo!

The idea for this thread is "based on a true story." I've been asked a few times to "fish-sit" over the years, and in one particular case, I started to panic because even though I faithfully (or perhaps, neurotically) fed them just a few flakes as directed, the tank was turning cloudy and I had no idea what to do.

If it would have just been a bowl, I would have tried my best to transfer the fish to another container and clean the bowl myself, but I know nothing about the workings of an all-out filtered tank.

Sadly, there were no survivors, and even then, I didn't know what to do. Should I try to clean the thing out myself before he got home? What if my friend wanted a "proper" burial, and would have been furious if I had given them "the flush"?

This was in the age of the dinosaurs, a time long before cell phones and I didn't even have his email address because I saw him every day at work. He was traveling overseas, so I literally had no way of contacting him.

I was pretty nervous about having my friend come home to a floating graveyard, but he told me he knew there was something wrong with the tank and suspected algae or fungus even before he left.

Looking back, I should have offered to pay for replacements but he had told me not to worry about it. I found the whole situation to be a bit traumatic (who wants to feel responsible for the demise of any living creatures!) and have kind of entered into an, "If The Fish Floats, It Ain't My Fault" agreement with anyone else who requests an aquatic babysitter.

P.S. Ironically, I was also asked to dog-sit for some people whom I babysat for. I was more nervous over watching their dog than I was looking after their kids.

I always suspected you were a serial killer. Something fishy about you. 🤪

Thank you, Kim Not sure of the year except it was for sure post 40

I used to meditatively watch the fish swimming in the tank. It was definitely
a very peaceful pastime, but the tank itself was a bit of a nightmare to look
after, being so large, and sometimes inexplicable things would happen like
the heater going bonkers and cooking some of the fish before I'd notice
Plus the cost of keeping the tank stocked with fish? I probably had the tank
for maybe around seven years after I inherited it, and finally had enough of it

Then I got cats

You are a truly courageous person to sit another person's child. There's no way I would dare to take that on, I wouldn't do it even for outrageously large sums of money, there are too many things that can go wrong (ask my anxiety for details).

Thank you, but like most any teenage girl, I was just trying to earn money for college and a car. 🙂

The owner would return and I’d be like...

“Dinner is served.”

I understand. My sister also babysat during college. I am just too anxious for some of the jobs that normal people do.

#2 and #3.

At which point the friend would likely say, "Don't worry about it. I was hoping it would die soon but didn't want to kill it."

Our employment-finding agency offered me a job baby sitting after I'd completed a year of college I turned it down

Cats? Is that how you got rid of the fish? Lol...

I'm kind of torn between 2 and 4, but I've never had fish so don't know how much personality or bond you can have with them. So might depend some on my friend's attitude toward the fish. Let's just say if their world would be wrecked by losing their fish and it looks just like any other fish out there, then I'd probably do the 4. Otherwise I'd probably clean it up and let them know when they were on their way back home (so they don't find out by coming home and seeing the empty fish tank). For larger pets with personality and fur (dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, gerbils, horses, etc), probably couldn't do the old swapparo so I'd go with #2.

Exception to that rule is any pet arachnid, if you ask me to watch your pet tarantula, you should just go ahead and expect it to die of neglect because I'm not going anywhere near that thing.

I’d never mind anyone’s gold fish/dog/cat/kid.

Hmm... this thread reminds me of a letter I found from a doctor stationed in the Kwajalien Islands. I include the following from his letter to his friend:

"We have a saltwater aquarium which is really neat. It requires very little care as I can replace the water from a large pond nearby known as the Pacific Ocean. At low tide I empty one of the small tidal pools in the reef with a bucket. When the pool is nearly empty I can net whatever is moving and then fling it into the tank. Sometimes I get a testy one and soon the tank has just one denizen going burp. Then I start over. The kid down the street thinks I am trying to fill the ocean with the bucket."

Wait, what? How did the fish die? Were there other fish? If so, did they die or survive? If they all died, how did they die? So many important details left unspecified...

Probably let the friend know after he comes back. I ain't paying for a fish just because he died on my watch, but I'm not bugging my friend about something so minor as a fish during his vacation. I mean... it's not like it was a REAL pet like a cat or dog.

That's terrible! That would be like if I forgot to give my dog water and he died of dehydration! I put the dog on the run - a nice long 270 foot run, to be sure, but it doesn't intersect a creek anywhere along the line - I set the circumstances that prevent the dog going off to find water for himself, so it becomes my moral responsibility to make sure to provide for him.

I can't think about this question of forgetting to feed the fish anymore. It makes me feel sorry for the poor hypothetical hungry fish. I know it's not a real fish, but just thinking about it makes me sad anyway.

I would call and tell them straight away. No surprises when they get home.