Most hated conversations

[The Mirrorball Man]

I'm almost 40 so I'm surrounded by people who constantly talk about home remodeling and renovations. Some of them, that's pretty much the only thing they ever talk about.

Me, I don't care. I don't care where you intend to put your new living room, I don't care about what color you intend to paint the kitchen, I don't care about the mezzanine, the conservatory or the basement, I don't care about tilework, indoor lighting or carpentry and no, I don't want to see the pictures.

What about you? What's your most hated conversation?

[SmoothieX]

The one out of the blue where my ex-wife said she was unhappy and leaving ranks up there pretty high.

[teacake]

I've often thought of starting this topic. These hatreds have formed over many years of listening to this stuff. Yes this is very harsh

These are my three most hated conversations, lots of other stuff I can't stand but makes me laugh on some level. These are just unbearable.

1. Home renovations. No I do not want to hear all about your tile selection process. I do not want to hear all about what color grout you are using in the bathroom. I do not want to hear all about the measurements and what the builder said and why it will be so great to have 2 more feet of wardrobe space. I am absolutely bored to death by this topic and I probably wouldn't notice this stuff in your house if I went there every week and it suddenly changed. PLEASE SHUT UP. Surely you can see I've glazed over and am not even making the required grunts of approval.

2. Your diet. This particularly applies if you are on some food combination diet that offers magical promises while enslaving you into its mumbo jumbo bondage. The classic scenario I've sat through so many times is I'm having lunch with someone who begins the meal telling me all about how she can't really be eating what she ordered, really she shouldn't.. it will do this, this, this, this and this to her. Then she eats it. Then she spends the rest of the meal telling me all about the stuff she will have to do to make up for this, what she will have to not eat tonight, what she will have to not eat tomorrow and if food intolerances are involved how she is now going to suffer because of this lunch. This is not conversation and I do not care.

3. The 12 Steps. That's nice, good for you I'm glad it's working out and now please stop interjecting the freaking 12 steps into every single discussion. How would you feel if I thought quoting one of the 10 Commandments every other sentence was conversation? You'd think I was a bit of a religious nut now, wouldn't you.You'd get sick of it mighty fast. Well imagine how I feel when your response to anybody's difficulties in life is to remind them that the first step is to admit that we are powerless.. maybe that's what we were bitching about did you ever think of that?!

Oh and while we're at it I know you've been sober for 12, 13, 14, 15 years because you've been telling me this for that long and it's still not a normal response to my saying I went to see the Hobbit.

[lurok]

Ditto diets/food faddists (esp when then steal your food *grrr*). Also babies/how smart kids are. No interest. How DS9 is better than all other Trek series (in boring detail). "So what do you do? Oh, that must very glamorous. Have you met anyone famous?" It's just a job.

[Robert D. Robot]

I will add the topic that my girlfriend would most assuredly add to this list: ...... Star Trek!

She has no interest in Star Trek at all, apart from making fun of it in MST3K-style.

YET it is incredible that every time she introduces me to one of her long-time friends, the subject of Star Trek and science fiction will inevitably come up and inevitably that old friend is discovered to have been a HUGE fan all along (and somehow that never came up during their longtime friendship). That old friend and then I go on to have a detailed Trek conversation while my girlfriend orders a strong drink and longs for a conversation about Gilmore Girls or NCIS....

I would also add endless tales about the children and grandchildren and what they are doing. While I do like to know what someone's kids are up to, I feel it is a bit sad when that is all a person has to talk about. I want to engage with the person I am talking with, not hear stories-without-end about what a child or teenager has been doing.

(Also, we just renovated our kitchen and two bathrooms last year, so we may be guilty parties in your book, Mirrorball Man! Although we did much of the work ourselves, so much of the story would be humorous bits about how we messed up as we learned what NOT to do. No boring stories about picking out paint colors, trim, or floor coverings. Just stories about ceilings dropping in on us, bad wiring that should have resulted in our stove exploding, and things that we found when we tore out the walls.... )

[backstept]

Sports. I couldn't care less who the new star sportsball player is, or which ball-thrower is popular this week for some incomprehensible reason, or which teams scored more points than they did last week, or which coach isn't coaching correctly, because you know coaches are entirely responsible for whether or not each individual sportsball player is playing sportsball correctly. If the players don't play well, fire ALL the coaches!

[Robert Maxwell]

I don't care whatsoever about sports.

I also tend not to care when people talk about their kids. That might be weird, considering I have two kids of my own that I take care of by myself, but then I don't talk about them all the time, either. I find it obnoxious when people insist on talking about their kids constantly. Don't these people have any other interests?

To be fair, I don't really like talking about my life in general. I will listen to everyone else's problems, but I'm not that big on talking about myself. It's not like I hate my life or something, it's more that I don't have a lot to complain about, and I think the details of my life aren't that interesting. So, I hate it when people try to draw more out of me than "I'm doing fine."

[Ood Sigma]

1. Children.
2. Any story that's been told to me dozens of times before.
3. "Shop talk" - i.e. two colleagues discussing the ins and outs of their business, leaving me with nothing to contribute.
4. Anything Hollywood/gossip related. Unless you know the person, why are you discussing their personal life?

[Admiral Buzzkill]

At my age? What we call "the goddamned organ recital:" conversations about blood pressure, cholesterol, current medications, etc. It's like talking about the fucking weather, and I've been declining to participate for a while now.

[The Mirrorball Man]

teacake wrote:

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I do not want to hear all about the measurements and what the builder said and why it will be so great to have 2 more feet of wardrobe space.

Heh, that's one of the things I forgot to mention: "what the builder said". These people are constantly complaining about the professionals they hire to work on their home renovations, and they want to you sympathize with them and feel as concerned about their ordeal as if they were telling you about their time in Pol Pot's re-education camps.

Robert D. Robot wrote:

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(Also, we just renovated our kitchen and two bathrooms last year, so we may be guilty parties in your book, Mirrorball Man! Although we did much of the work ourselves, so much of the story would be humorous bits about how we messed up as we learned what NOT to do. No boring stories about picking out paint colors, trim, or floor coverings. Just stories about ceilings dropping in on us, bad wiring that should have resulted in our stove exploding, and things that we found when we tore out the walls.... )

Oh, those types of stories are perfectly alright.

[Tora Ziyal]

Sports. "Celebrity" gossip. And medical info in way too much detail, unless you're a close friend.

[SeerSGB]

1) How much their life suck when they've actually got it pretty good. "Oh you had a cry for two days cause you couldn't get an Iphone 4 the day of release. Shut Up!"

2) Why I have MS but refuse to apply for my social-security disability. This appears to be a common topic of conversation with one of my wife's new coworkers who is infinitely fascinated about me for some reason.

3) Money with anyone but the wife.

4) MS. I am more than the illness people.

5) Why I didn't marry a local girl.

[Kestra]

SmoothieX wrote:

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The one out of the blue where my ex-wife said she was unhappy and leaving ranks up there pretty high.

That was my first thought when I saw the title of the thread too.

Robert Maxwell wrote:

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I don't care whatsoever about sports.

I also tend not to care when people talk about their kids. That might be weird, considering I have two kids of my own that I take care of by myself, but then I don't talk about them all the time, either. I find it obnoxious when people insist on talking about their kids constantly. Don't these people have any other interests?

To be fair, I don't really like talking about my life in general. I will listen to everyone else's problems, but I'm not that big on talking about myself. It's not like I hate my life or something, it's more that I don't have a lot to complain about, and I think the details of my life aren't that interesting. So, I hate it when people try to draw more out of me than "I'm doing fine."

You must hate our conversations then! I like hearing about people's kids if they are people I am close to. I don't need to hear endlessly about them, but it's a part of their life that I'd like to know about.

I think the only thing I really hate is when my family is together and all starts talking about being healthy and fit, because I'm not and I get super uncomfortable.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Any kind of small talk.

[JeffreyAbrams]

The Mirrorball Man wrote:

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I'm almost 40 so I'm surrounded by people who constantly talk about home remodeling and renovations. Some of them, that's pretty much the only thing they ever talk about.

Me, I don't care. I don't care where you intend to put your new living room, I don't care about what color you intend to paint the kitchen, I don't care about the mezzanine, the conservatory or the basement, I don't care about tilework, indoor lighting or carpentry and no, I don't want to see the pictures.

What about you? What's your most hated conversation?

In 10 to 20 years, all your friends will solely be talking about their health issues.