To be sick of strangers’ life stories?

Ok before the inevitable pile on, perhaps in empathising with the op o should have remembered some people need to have every last detail because they delight in picking holes on here.

Obviously the cashier did the generic how's your day thing first.
Obviously the neighbours, as I live in a tiny street, asked if the ambulance was for us. I didn't go knocking to tell them as I was a bit busy.

Don't bother @ing me again, on reflection your first comment was so rude by choice I don't want to engage anymore.

I can have sympathy for how lonely a lot of people must feel but this isn't a great habit. I think social skills are like muscle, some have better skills than others but it's something we all need to keep using in order to get the best out of them.

I'm very sorry for your loss. But no, I wouldn't have been one of the ones you told as I don't usually talk about personal stuff with strangers. If a random stranger told me about a death, I would have smiled and nodded politely and gone on my way quickly.

Unlike me, I think those strangers were trying to be kind by "connecting" or sympathising with you, albeit in a clumsy way.

I know the checkout man responded the wrong way, but really, people may have poor social skills, or are flustered at this stranger's sudden revelation, or are trying to show you you're not alone, or are just as lonely/isolated/in need of a listening ear as you, etc...

In general, lovely chance encounters aside, I think it's not a great idea to expect strangers to be a skilled listening ear who reacts the right way that you want. Friends, family or maybe even a therapist are better for that.

To be fair to the cashier, you started it.

@ziggies wow you're probably one of those I told. So in response to 'my grandad died this morning' you don't say 'sorry' you decide to list all the deaths you know about. Think self awareness is lacking somewhere else.
I have never responded to someone saying their loved one was taken to hospital that day by redirecting to myself.

It's probably just modern loneliness compared to how society used to be set up. Lots of old people who don't use social media and don't interact with anyone with social media are (understandably because they're isolated and so lonely) the worst and most intrusive oversharers I've met.

Um....... You invited it first in both cases! How little self awareness / how much self-centredness can you have lol?

Whereas it seems OP didn't invite anything at all, didn't start going on about herself

I get the same all the time . For example when i was at a children's party (I knew only 1 adult who was busy hosting), and whilst my ds was off on the bouncy castle I got the story of one woman's adult sons stage 4 cancer, that was before she told me her name. Then the children's entertainer told me all about the death of her husband. There was no phone signal and nowhere to escape to. Finally some man spent 15 minutes explaining his sons allergies in great detail.
On Saturday I was stood outside a shop trying to find my keys in my bag in a town i have never been to when an old lady came up to me, told me all about her dog dying and how lonely she was.
I am sympathetic but these people assume you are in the right mental place to be able to take on their problems, only have a one way dialogue and never take a hint.
I have no clue what the answer is.

I am autistic and avoid the hairdresser for this very reason. I am also self employed and have heaps of my own tragic tales, that I would never in a million years dream of sharing with a client.

I think it's really poor form to overshare when you are offering a paid service.

Yikes !

I can be very smiley to people (eg saying "morning" in the street to people I don't actually know or to neighbours I don't know well. I'll have a quick chat with supermarket checkout staff whilst I'm (swiftly) packing but also know I have a resting bitch face. In my early years I'd sometimes be called "reserved". I have been known to get my book out and avoid eye contact or you could plug in earphones to listen to a podcast or TED talk.. 🌹

My nail technician is like this but as I’ve had a shit life too I don’t mind listening to her.

Yes! Very true. I suppose I'm a bit old fashioned in my attitude - I'm the youngest child of parents who started late in life.

Bane of my life. I've got the opposite of resting bitch face, I've got resting "tell me your problems" face. My dad had it too, and I look just like him, although he genuinely was a nice person, which I'm not so sure about myself. I'm quite private and find the culture of oversharing really awkward.

I'm currently in hiding from my neighbour who really really needs a therapist to talk to.

I think social media has now created a culture where strangers now feel it's acceptable to offload. In my mother and grandmothers generations telling strangers your personal business wouldn't have been acceptable.

Menopause, trauma, bereavement, periods- nothing is taboo anymore. In some ways that's healthier. In others, where people are lonely or have a captive audience,it means strangers cop for it!

I can't stand this. I'm getting better at shutting it down but I don't like being treated as a pair of ears, particularly as I would never be so selfish as to expect other people to listen to me drone on endlessly about my problems.

It sounds like the widow might have been more sympathetically received had the stylist not taken the piss by dumping her emotional baggage on your and charging you a fortune for the privilege.

Not sure what to suggest. My DH laughs at me because I have a tendency to befriend people who then talk me to death. I am getting better at boundaries though. Sometimes you have to be rude. But I get it, it's annoying.

I have that face too. Everybody tells me every fucking thing. My DH tells me that I should have had a daytime tv show. I would have made a fortune. Meanwhile, I think I need to somehow learn to tell people that I need to develop some boundaries for my own mental health and ask them to stop using me to download. (I haven’t managed yet…)

Yanbu however I think the more technology takes over and the world becomes more online and less face to face the lonelier people become and will find anyone to off load to.

What annoys me is not so much the over-sharing but the talking AT you. Dumping everything on you then going about their day. It's especially grating when you know the person and they don't so much as ask about you!

Yanbu, my manager is like this - really believes misery loves company. Sounds bad but after four years of it in her department I've realised it's just an example if how I don't want to become. I've had some fucking horrendous times under her management and pulled myself together and moved on from it without ever bringing it to work or bringing it up and I quite often think when she's moaning about her own hardships that we all have them, some of us just prefer not to live, eat and breathe it. I get that some people need more help in life but surely at some point you realise you could be really heavily impacting a stranger with your tales of woe?

A work colleague rang me on Friday night and the call lasted 3 hours and 39 minutes.

^

I'm sorry but you're a fool to yourself

After half an hour max I'd have invented an emergency

o I get told I’m easy to talk too 😬 I once was stuck next to a woman on a 13 hour flight, she wouldn’t shut the fuck up. She took some sleeping pills but they made her worse. I even pretended to fall asleep and she didn’t stop. I eventually buzzed for some wine. It was a night flight and after I’d finished my glass the attendant passed me a big bottle and said I think you will need this 😂

I would have hung up amd said my battery died

It's people needing a soundboard. They need to rant to someone but don't have anyone close to do so with.

I've always been approached and depending on the day, will listen, give advice or cut it short.
It's hard when you don't want to seem rude but they won't stop long enough for you to make your excuses.

If I need to go, I always say I have an appointment to get to. If cornered, then I say I have some emails/research to get on with then go on my phone.
Or say you're listening to a podcast.

This happens to me sometimes, too. I have two neighbours that both want to tell me the ins and outs of their health every time I see them. Years ago I used to stand and listen whilst they talked at me but I'm a lot less tolerant of it all now. I usually just say something like 'nice to see you, but I'm having a busy day so I've got to run'.

I also get people that work on tills in shops wanting to tell me their life/medical history too. I'm polite but also 'in a hurry' in those situations too, and I try not to get too drawn into the conversation.