The context of the situation. If you're at a party you're there to meet people and have a good time. Plenty of deep conversations have been had at parties, but

The context of the situation. If you're at a party you're there to meet people and have a good time. Plenty of deep conversations have been had at parties, but they rarely start out that personal. Starting a conversation with a question like that means the other person will have to reflect it back to you, which means you get to answer however you like. If the person wasn't self-absorbed, they could have answered like "I want to be helpful to others" or something along those lines.