What is it about guitars that make people think everyone wants to hear them?

[TwatsAndGuitars]

Sitting outside a cafe and some guitar wanker appears. I spot him and know what's coming next. He starts singing and playing. They almost always do. WTF is it about acoustic guitar players that makes them think that everyone in the general vicinity wants to hear them? You don't tend to get spontaneous unnecessary public performances by flautists or violinists, or do you? I don't count street performers in this btw. Just the guitar wankers who start randomly playing in cafes,restaurants and other public spaces where people are usually paying to be.

That scene in the Barbie movie was hilarious because so well-observed and true! It's not just acoustic guitar players though. My OH is into electronica and likes to twiddle his knobs at home (ooh-er missus) - he is perpetually wounded that I have absolutely no interest in sitting around and listening to his bleeps, despite the fact that he knows I am really not into electronic music and never have been. I know he really enjoys doing it and I have never suggested he stop, just ask that he does it in a different room wearing headphones I get reproachful sad face every time as he trails off into the study...

@NeverDropYourMooncup wow, that’s very, uhm, specific. I hope you’re not talking about the lovely Jon Gomm?

We are still in the EHRC and sign up to various conventions against cruelty. Coldplay played by Coldplay is bad enough (and I have consciously uncoupled myself from listening to Chris Martin and his bedwetting sound), but is ten times worse played by someone whose talents are not playing the guitar.

There is one in our town who stands in the middle of the precinct where all the coffee shops and cafes are with tables outside. He has a guitar and an amp and subjects his reluctant audience to an awful cacophony of wailing. I hope one day one of the cafe owners produces a large pair of garden shears and snips the wires off his amp 🤣🤣

There’s almost always a twat with a guitar at a campsite.

One of my neighbours was sat in his front garden strumming away this afternoon. Not even his back garden. The front, where everyone can see. Why, just why?

Nah. The country has been infested with Blokes with a Tanglewood since at least 2007. I was kind of hoping that they'd metamorphosed into their final instar of 'Old guy in bar criticising the band' by now, but they're still stuck in their larval stage.

We have a local guy who plays the pub circuit and busks, he's great! If he puts on Facebook he is busking by the marina I try to go down for half an hour

Sympathies to everyone else who has also been plagued by a guitar or djembe wanker. They really are insufferable.

Nope. We're the ones sitting at the back wishing for a freak lightning strike to leave nothing but a smouldering pair of brown suede Hush Puppies.

That made me laugh out loud.

There’s almost always a twat with a guitar at a campsite.

Now I have another reason to stick with hotels.

Oh gawd, we used to have one in the conservatory due to DHs brief flurry into musicianship. I had to hide it after the incidents where my friend strummed the damn thing and serenaded us with some tedious folk song and an American relative started riffing on it - whilst complaining it was out of tune.

Omg I have a friend who does this. He has a collection of guitars,2 acoustic and 3 electric. He's not bad,but not exactly brilliant on them. Thankfully he hasn't brought his acoustic guitar along to the coffee shop for quite a while now,but he went through a phase about a year ago when he would keep appearing with it. I must confess that one time when I was approaching the coffee shop and saw him sitting outside with his back to me,with his guitar,I turned around and went somewhere else! I was beginning to find it embarrassing. Only so many bad renditions of Stairway to Heaven that I can cope with! 😂

😂😂😂😂

The worst guitar wanker I knew always played 'more than words' by extreme.

Could be worse. He could be a poet with a yen for public performance.

A friend of a friend brings his bloody bongos to every get together. FFS.

I'm a female guitar player, been playing for almost 50 years, and I never take any of my guitars out to play in public. I enjoy playing, but hate performing. Definitely not a female guitar wanker.

Come to think about it, all the guitar wankers I know are male, and I know quite a few.

I think your friend is quoting the second Inbetweeners film.

Oh thank god others hate them too. I know someone who always produces a guitar during gatherings, apparently 'everyone insisted.' He also holds court in the pub, braying at everyone loudly with his incredibly long and boring fascinating stories.

This might be one of the best sentences I've read in a while.

And I'm a survivor of Brighton in the early 2000s. You couldn't walk down the street without encountering some fool with a guitar and THAT LOOK that made you want to punch them. Ah my youth.

I was once camping and a bloke started badly twanging a guitar, which was bad enough, but then his mate joined in on a bongo!
Eventually another camper, a very angry looking lady stormed over to them and threatened to shove the bongos up his arse while breaking the guitar over his mates head.
I hid inside my tent desperately muffling my laughter with my sleeping bag.

When I first used to go out at night, I used to go to a heavy rock night and you'd start dancing with someone who looked perfectly normal and then he'd start doing air guitar for the whole bloody song. Luckily those men used to shut their eyes while they played so I could slip away quite easily.

I went on one date with a guitar wanker. He took me to McDonald’s (we weren’t teens!) and afterwards ended up at a flat with my pal. We sat chatting for a while and my friend started getting frisky with the guy whose flat it was. I felt really awkward and suggested we leave but GW picked up a guitar and started to serenade the couple dry humping on the sofa. I left the three of them to it. No idea what happened after I left but needless to say it didn’t endear me to guitar wankers afterwards.

My husband taught himself how to play the guitar and all I head for about a year was "Been Through the Desert on a Horse With No Name".
He is buried under the patio.

A whole year @RenoDakota? You're a woman with a high bar for pain. Did you sling the IOT (instrument of torture) in with him?