I was tempted to link you to her LiveJournal entry so that you can see why she feels this way, but I don't feel I have the right, so I will try to explain it to you.
The friend I am talking about comes from a conservative Christian family and lives in a conservative Christian part of the country. Her honest answers to the three questions would be: I don't go to church because I'm an atheist, I have a girlfriend, and I don't plan to have kids until I earn a graduate degree, in that order. Where she lives, those answers would brand her as one of "the wrong kind of people." She doesn't want to lie when she's asked this kind of stuff, but is too scared to tell the truth. She hasn't really learned that the opinions of narrow-minded people shouldn't bother her.
So don't blame her for being scared of "innocent attempts to make conversation," because that's not all they are: they're also a way of gauging whether she's "normal" or not. She's aware of that and it puts a lot of pressure on her.
no subject
The friend I am talking about comes from a conservative Christian family and lives in a conservative Christian part of the country. Her honest answers to the three questions would be: I don't go to church because I'm an atheist, I have a girlfriend, and I don't plan to have kids until I earn a graduate degree, in that order. Where she lives, those answers would brand her as one of "the wrong kind of people." She doesn't want to lie when she's asked this kind of stuff, but is too scared to tell the truth. She hasn't really learned that the opinions of narrow-minded people shouldn't bother her.
So don't blame her for being scared of "innocent attempts to make conversation," because that's not all they are: they're also a way of gauging whether she's "normal" or not. She's aware of that and it puts a lot of pressure on her.