No, it’s not a question. It’s not even a rhetorical question. I know it’s usually phrased “Guess what?”, but that’s wrong. It’s a demand. I’m telling you to guess what I’m going to say. I believe that I have interesting, startling, or shocking news. News about which I believe you don’t already know. And I’m telling you to guess what that news is.

No, it has nothing to do with what we are currently, or were just recently, talking about. It might pertain to a previous conversation, which I’m sure you’re not thinking about right now, or a subject about which we both have an interest, though that’s by no means necessary from my point of view. Or it could be totally out of the blue, which is much more likely, because then it would be really surprising. Ultimately, I’m not going to tell you to guess what I have to say if I think you actually know what I’m going to say. Then you’d be the one relating the exciting news, and what fun would that be?

What I’m really telling you to do, in asking me to tell you my thrilling account, is to tell me that I’m smarter than you, and that you want to be as smart as me by having me teach you what I know. If I were to just blurt out what I know, I run the risk that you didn’t want to know it. No, you have to tell me that, no matter what I have to say, you want to hear it. I want you to tell me to tell you what I’m dying to tell you, not because I’m dying to tell you but because you’re dying to hear it. I’m demanding, in fact, that you pump me for information that you can’t live without.

With this in mind, I’m going to actually ask you a question, for which I believe you are capable of giving me an answer, because I believe you know the answer, and not just because I want to tell you the answer, though that is also true. And here is the question:

Who do you suppose are the kind of people to most often demand that someone else “guess what”?

That’s right. Children.

As in, “‘Kay, um, know what? ‘Kay, um, so, um, this one time..?” in a sing-song-y voice, before launching into an endless story about finding something in their nose. Of course, they are more likely to ask if you “know what” as opposed to demanding that you “guess what”, but the child is at least honest about their intentions. They don’t want you to guess what they’re talking about, so much as have you admit that you have NO IDEA what they’re talking about, which implies, to them, that you WOULD LIKE DEARLY TO HEAR WHAT THEY HAVE TO SAY. ABOUT WHAT THEY FOUND IN THEIR NOSE.

And here’s a rhetorical question: why would adults want to continue communicating like children?

I think that it’s time we, as adults, hold ourselves and each other to a higher level of maturity in our exchanges. I had originally thought that I might offer alternatives to the use of “guess what”, but that would imply that you need to be told what those alternatives are.

And you don’t. If you’ve read this far, you’re probably an adult, and hopefully, know how to start a conversation with another adult without resorting to “guess what!!”

One suggestion I will offer: if you are confronted by the demand to “guess what”, there is an age-appropriate response that should be used to illustrate, to the person demanding, the only level at which a conversation thus begun can logically proceed.

Chicken butt.