Is there a word that describes a statement whose negative is senseless or would otherwise never be used?

Consider the statement "I like to have fun" or "I like to spend time with my friends".

These border on tautologies though I don't think they would be considered as such by most. Although these statements purport meaning, the are in fact devoid of it.

For example, "fun" is by definition something people like to do, so to say "I like to have fun" is redundant. Similarly, "friends" are people that you like to hang out with, so to say "I like to spend time with my friends" is again redundant.

To me, these statements are empty of meaning but don't quite fully fall under the category of something that is trite or vapid. The fact that their opposites, "I don't like to have fun" or "I don't like to spend time with my friends" would rarely, if ever, be in circulation (except in some pathological cases), begs for a term that reaches beyond the concept of a "empty" or "unoriginal" idea and captures this implication I describe above about its opposite.

Personal ads such as online dating profiles are replete with these phrases. I can't help but feel that there's a specific word to describe them.

Solution 1:

Such statements are platitudes.

From Wikipedia:

A platitude is a trite, meaningless, or prosaic statement, generally directed at quelling social, emotional, or cognitive unease. The word derives from plat, French word for "flat." Platitudes are geared towards presenting a shallow, unifying wisdom over a difficult topic. However, they are too overused and general to be anything more than undirected statements with ultimately little meaningful contribution towards a solution.

Examples could be statements such as "Meet in the middle", "Everybody has a right to an opinion", "Everything happens for a reason", "It is what it is", "Do what you can", "Just be yourself", "God works in mysterious ways" and "Nobody's perfect".

Platitudes are generally a form of thought-terminating cliché.

Solution 2:

"I like to have fun"

"I like to spend time with my friends"

The cynical sneers of misanthropes notwithstanding, these statements are emotional or relational axioms:

NOUN

1.0 A statement or proposition which is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true:

These are normative statements made for the sake of normal people confirming that we are just like them and all of their other friends. Undeterred by scorn and ridicule, we insist on saying these things, because the etymology of axiom implies they are worth saying:

late 15c., from Middle French axiome,

from Latin axioma,

from Greek axioma "authority," literally "that which is thought worthy or fit,"

from axioun "to think worthy,"

from axios "worthy, worth, of like value, weighing as much,"

from PIE adjective **ag-ty-o-* "weighty,"

from root **ag*- "to drive, draw, move" (see act (n.)).

Axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses. [Keats, letter, May 3, 1818]

Axiomatic statements, like I love my wife, are worth saying even if they are self-evident, because they drive us, draw us, and move us toward a deeper experience of the self-evident truth they express. At minimum, as the OP implies, these emotional and relational axioms normalize our sane interaction with the people around us. The meaning is not on the face of the words, but in the heart of the implication:

I am normal:

• I like to have fun!

I'm just like you and all of your other friends:

• I like to spend time with my friends!

I'm not a grumpy old man yet:

• I (still) like to have fun!
• I (still) like to spend time with my friends!

Solution 3:

Merriam-Webster's Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary (2003) has this entry for the noun truism:

truism n (1708) an undoubted or self-evident truth; esp : one too obvious for mention —truistic adj.

Truisms are neither controversial nor especially interesting to discuss at length, and they tend not to have meaningful negatives. Indeed, the word truism itself doesn't have an obvious negative (certainly not falsism). So the adjective truistic may be a good descriptive term for the statements you are talking about, and the noun truisms may be a good single word for such statements.