Most hated conversations

[ThankQ]

teacake wrote:

---

I went to see the Hobbit.

Really? I've been sober for nine years.

[TorontoTrekker]

Kids. I'm never going to have any of my own, so I have no interest in your brat's dance recital/soccer game/report card.

In fact, a few weeks ago at work, I was at my desk while one of my co-workers and a project manager were in my manager's office, which is about six feet from my desk. Now, there are a few of us in the IT department who routinely put in an hour or two of (unpaid) overtime every night, because we're that short-staffed and the sales department keeps making promises to clients that they don't personally have to fulfill - we do. But outside of IT, the rest of the building is a ghost town at 5:01PM every night (and even in IT, there are only about two or three of us who stay late every night - I rarely get home before 8:30, and four nights a week, I'm the one who sets the alarm before I go because I'm the last one out).

All of a sudden, I heard the project manager say to my fellow developer, "You can't be tired - you don't have kids," and our manager expressed agreement. Just because we don't have kids, that doesn't make our lives any less fulfilling or any less jam-packed.

Mind you, the manager is the same person who has said to me on four occasions, "This is why you need a wife." (I guess he doesn't understand the significance of the rainbow triangle on the poster in my cubicle, and has never read the accompanying text...)

Point is, stop trying to make it sound like your life is so much better because you've got an opposite-sex spouse with whom you've procreated. I'm not interested.

teacake wrote:

---

I loves me some facebook drama. And I am not ashamed.

Oh, you'd love what happened in a post I made earlier this week. Funny thing is, all I was doing was describing a dream I'd had the previous night. It turned into an epic smackdown against an acquaintance (I wouldn't actually call him a friend) who had, essentially, accused me of being a liar. Funny thing is, the acquaintance didn't unfriend me and stomp off in a huff when he was shown to be wrong (he's probably basking in the attention, truth be told).

Oh, another conversational topic I hate is what happened last night on [insert television show here]. Most people who know me know that while I have the TV on for background noise, I'm rarely actually paying attention to it, except for a few science fiction shows. Telling me about the most recent episode of How I Met Your Mother holds no interest for me. After I've responded by saying that I don't watch the show, and telling you what I do watch, saying, "Oh, but you should - it's so funny!" is an even less enthralling conversational gambit.

(I have nothing against television - I'm not one of those people who responds to the topic by suggesting that you're inferior for watching it, unlike a former co-worker who went around bragging to everyone in sight that she didn't have a TV, and only went to subtitled foreign-language movies. I just find that most shows don't hold my interest.)

[The Mirrorball Man]

TorontoTrekker wrote:

---

Kids. I'm never going to have any of my own, so I have no interest in your brat's dance recital/soccer game/report card.

I can understand where you're coming from, but that attitude dramatically narrows down the kind of conversation you're likely to have, doesn't it?

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ That could be the very POINT.

[mimic]

A few stand out.

I love my parents, but this fall they both participated in a fantasy football league. My Dad in particular felt the need to give me weekly updates on who Mom was playing, and who he was playing, and how their respective team's outlooks were, etc. I thought it would be obvious to him after a while that I really didn't care, because all I'd ever say was 'that's nice, Dad,' but apparently it never sunk in because I got those updates right through to the final week.

My grandma has a habit of always telling me about her friends, none of whom I know. She goes into great detail. Over Christmas she told me that 'Eloise is in rehab,' and I replied 'drugs, or alcohol?' and I think that must've offended her. Renegade points! But any conversation with her ends up being some detailed reports on which of her UPenn classmates will be coming to the reunion in July, or some letter she got from someone she knew 50 years ago. It wouldn't be so bad except that she can talk about these people for hours on end, and there's no escape.

[macloudt]

mimic wrote:

---

My grandma has a habit of always telling me about her friends, none of whom I know. She goes into great detail. Over Christmas she told me that 'Eloise is in rehab,' and I replied 'drugs, or alcohol?' and I think that must've offended her. Renegade points! But any conversation with her ends up being some detailed reports on which of her UPenn classmates will be coming to the reunion in July, or some letter she got from someone she knew 50 years ago. It wouldn't be so bad except that she can talk about these people for hours on end, and there's no escape.

One of my aunts keeps my dad on the phone for hours talking about supposed old friends of his whom he doesn't even remember. My aunt thinks of herself as the matriarch of their home town, and knows exactly who's related to whom regarding her own generation (she's 88). I can remember her sending newspaper clippings of obituaries to my parents, and my father constantly had to ask my mother who those people in the obits were. Sometimes my mother would know, but often it remained a mystery. This aunt had a terrible habit of dragging me and any other unsuspecting nieces and nephews (she's childless) to really obscure, distant relatives. It was awkward, embarrassing, and very tedious.

[TorontoTrekker]

The Mirrorball Man wrote:

---

I can understand where you're coming from, but that attitude dramatically narrows down the kind of conversation you're likely to have, doesn't it?

Not really. I'm more than happy to converse on a variety of topics. I find politics and current events especially fascinating sometimes (so long as the person I'm talking to is willing to actually discuss, and not just spout talking points). If someone wants to talk about a TV show I actually do watch, I'm more than happy to talk about it (I've had some great conversations about Lost, for example, and there are a few Trek fans at work too). I can talk about some sports, as I'm a hockey and baseball fan. If you've read an interesting book, even if I haven't read it myself, I can pretty much guarantee that I'll be interested. If a person want to talk about something that happened to them personally, that can be interesting too.

It's probably because I didn't have a particularly happy childhood myself, and also because I have no real points of reference in a conversation about someone else's kids. As I said, I'm not going to be having any of my own, very few of my friends have any, and I don't have any siblings, so I don't have any nephews or nieces either.

[propita]

My Name Is Legion wrote:

---

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.

I confess that for a number of years, I was quite centered on my health, but that was because of chest pains and a cardiologist telling me I was a heart attack waiting to happen. Scared the crap out of me for 3 years.

[teacake]

I don't mind hearing about people's kids personalities and their relationships with their kids. I am interested in people's stories about.. people.

Just don't tell me about your fucking kitchen cupboards kthxbye.

[Pingfah]

My friends are constantly banging on about hifi equipment, turntables, cartridges & styli, speakers and music production. It bores the living crap out of me. All conversations about music quickly turn to sound and production quality instead.

If I lend my friend an album and ask him if he liked it, he invariably replies with something like "well, the bottom end was a bit loose and I don't think the drums were recorded very well".

Yes, but what about the MUSIC?!

[ITL]

Pingfah wrote:

---

My friends are constantly banging on about hifi equipment, turntables, cartridges & styli, speakers and music production. It bores the living crap out of me. All conversations about music quickly turn to sound and production quality instead.

If I lend my friend an album and ask him if he liked it, he invariably replies with something like "well, the bottom end was a bit loose and I don't think the drums were recorded very well".

Yes, but what about the MUSIC?!

I, too, hate those conversations. Especially the guitar ones..."Yeah, but that pickup is a little richer in the low mids but doesn't lose the top end sparkle when you back off the volume a tad...." Gah.

Also, I have a friend who refuses to listen to music without doing this:

"It's good, but not as good as *BLAH BLAH by WHATSHISFACE*, is it?"
"Listen to this! Listen to this! It's better than that one you just said you liked!"
"I don't care what anyone says, *WHATSHISFACE* is the best at this kind of stuff. It's right, innit? Innit? Innit?"

He's a great guy, but it's impossible to have a conversation about music with him that doesn't go down that road within ten seconds...

[RAMA]

I want to say gun control but I always wind up talking about it anyway...you can put this topic under religion, these two sides are just as intractable.

RAMA

[scotpens]

Pingfah wrote:

---

My friends are constantly banging on about hifi equipment, turntables, cartridges & styli, speakers and music production. It bores the living crap out of me. All conversations about music quickly turn to sound and production quality instead.

If I lend my friend an album and ask him if he liked it, he invariably replies with something like "well, the bottom end was a bit loose and I don't think the drums were recorded very well".

Yes, but what about the MUSIC?!

[Warp Coil]

My one uncle is rather... eccentric. He likes to joke around, embellish things and outright lie because he hopes to get an amusing reaction out of people. Sometimes it's funny and sometimes it's annoying. He's also a broken record in that he likes to say the same things almost every time I am with him.

His favorite topics of choice:
- He's won the lottery.
- The family is moving to England (my grandmother is British)
- He's won the lottery and we're moving to England
- He's buying a classic Rolls Royce
- He likes to nitpick at my own life and behavior and tell me not to do something (don't talk on the phone while you drive; don't sell my place and move; don't go scuba diving because of sharks; don't go rock climbing because it's dangerous; don't think about moving to the west coast because of earthquakes, etc.)

These conversation topics inevitably come up. Every. Single. Time.

[propita]

Not really a conversation:

I had a complete ass as a law school professor. There could have been a drinking game based on his lectures: Take one drink every time he says something about how great he is. Make it a double if it relates to his having a black belt. The class would have been bombed in an hour with this jerk. And I had a friend/classmate who could have wiped the floor with him, as she was quite a bit past, as she said, "only a black belt?"

So arrogant, he naturally doesn't realize it. While in court on a case, a friend of mine heard the attorneys discussing whom to get as a mediator. One named this jerk to the judge. The other attorneys in the courtroom were split between laughing and moaning. Yeah, a real legend in his own mind.