How to Correctly Say “ I don’t have an answer"

Have a question that has been nagging you for a while now but you are too embarrassed to ask aloud? Worry not, email us your question and Susie shall answer!

This week, Susie was asked, ‘How to correctly say “ I don’t have an answer”’

First things first, go look in a mirror, do you look like any of the people in the three pictures above? If the answer is No, then congratulations! No one expects you to be a ‘Know-It-All’. 

You are not Google ( you are a living, breathing, sentient human being right? Now that I think of it, maybe that should have been the first question) and no one expects you to know about everything, all the time, even if you are one of three leading experts in a super niche subject, like representation of Greenland in German Literature in the 19th century.

All this is to say, it is okay to not know. It is human to not know and Susie is here to show how to admit this gracefully.

• I understand that is an important question but I do not have the exact figure in front of me right now and I would not want to tell you something that I did not know for myself if it was 100% correct. As soon as I am in front of a computer, I will get that figure over to you. If I could ask for your patience now, I will get back with the exact response, as soon as I can. 

Say it aloud. Repeat this. Over and over again till it comes naturally to you. As a bonus point, this statement makes you appear humble and modest too! You sound relatable, it gives you a chance to learn more about the topic and keep the conversation going. 

It is also important to know, what not to do - 

• Do not look very confused and use filler words to buy time or look up in your notebook, very well knowing that you do not have the information in the notebook anyway. 
• Do not come up with some random or vague statistic/answer and try to pass it off as the correct response
• Do not stick to your guns (even if you are panicking slightly) because you said something that you are not sure about 
• Do not desperately attempt to steer conversation in some other direction while being painfully aware that everyone remembers your response and everyone in the room knows that it was incorrect 

Remember you can not bluff your way through every room and every conversation. If you do not know, you do not know. You risk more by being remembered as a person-who-bluffs than a person-who-did-not-know-but-took-an-effort-to-look-it-up. 

P.S. Be kind to your friends in humanities and social sciences who are pursuing their research in super niche areas/topics. Learn to look interested - nod your head, insert phrases like - is that so/tell me more, etc. during the conversation. Do not ask them - how is their research going, how far along are they, or why are they still in grad school after 7 years!

Pro tip: Do not ask who would actually read their research.