How long would you listen about someone else’s holiday?

[Tallerinanotherdimension]

What’s polite? I’m genuinely happy for someone if they had a great time away but listening to it sometimes verges on “you had to have been there” so it’s not interesting.

Most of the time I let them say what they need to say - for many people half the point of going on holidays is to tell people about it and show photos afterwards. And sometimes you hear about a place you would genuinely like to go.

After 20 minutes I would make an excuse or chew my leg off to escape if they haven't finished. I rarely find it interesting after the first 30 seconds.

3 minutes max, I just want to hear a bullet point summary 😃
(because that’s what I try and do in return, then the conversation can move on)

• went to the seaside
• swam naked in the sea
• a squirrel climbed on my head

🤣 (off to name-change now)

It depends on where they’ve been.
Sitting in the sun, reading and sipping wine sounds blissful but does not make a great story.
Visiting unusual places or doing something challenging could be interesting to listen to

Within reason, they can say as much as they like and I’ll listen cause I don’t want to be rude and cutting someone off or shutting them down isn’t my style but my interest depends on the kind of trip really. If it’s a week in lanzarote, there’s not all that much to say that I would find interesting but if they travelled south east Asia for three months, I expect they’d have a lot of interesting stories and photos to show.

Depends where they've been. Brittany for a week and they've done nothing but eat cheese, I'd be interested for about 5mins.

Backpacking around Thailand for 6 months, or climbed everest, I'd happily listen for longer!

It does depend on the person. My thoughtful friend Probably about 10 minutes.

Boring blaggers who whitter on in normal circumstances, probably 1 minute before I would zone out.

It completely depends.
if it’s somewhere I might be intending to go then great, I’ll let them tell me about it.
If it’s somewhere I don’t intend to go then no, I’m not interested in listening.
Also depends on who it is.
Close family then yes I’m listening. A work colleague or neighbour talking about their recent trip to Cyprus then no Im not interested other then ‘Dd you have a good holiday?’ ‘Yes great thanks.’

I also don’t mind funny stories.

It depends on:
How much I care about them
How good they are at making it interesting
Where they have been

So, a work colleague's monotone account of a week at the seaside, a few minutes. Best mate's hilarious account of travels in Mexico complete with amazing photos, half an hour.

For in mine it’s a colleague that’s going to Asia. And she’s done nothing but go on and on and on about it and she’s not even there yet! So it’s going to be hell when she’s done it.

This colleague will rarely ever listen to anything I say either. Like I’ve come back from a holiday and she never even said “did you have a nice time”. She has zero interest.

It depends how interesting their holiday was!

If she doesn't listen to you then she is just plain rude and self centred, I wouldn't entertain more than 5 minutes .

and on and on about it and she’s not even there yet!

^

Whhaaatttt

Well, never listen to a bore.

For me, it depends about 90% on whether the person is interesting about their experiences. I will give a certain amount of goodwill to someone for whom I have a lot of affection, but basically it comes down to ‘Are you able to talk interestingly about where you’ve been?’ I have friends who could make a 48- hour, weather-enforced stopover in LHR more entertaining than someone else on heading up the Amazon in a dugout to find uncontacted tribes.

Yes 🥹🥹🥹

I’ve heard about what she plans to do on the plane, where she’s staying the night before, what time her flight is, how long the flight is, the multiple photos of restaurants she’s going to, the photos of the hotel.

And this is why I’m dreading having to hear about it when it actually happens.

Tell her that you're finding it upsetting because you are so jealous of her trip, unfortunately you can't bear to hear about it anymore.

I have a friend who talks about her holidays in a way that's interesting because she gets so much out of them and goes to really offbeat places like primeval forests in Poland and Armenia and Odessa, back when that was possible. I could listen to her all day.

On the other hand one of DH's mates started telling me about his holiday to spain while flicking through photos on his phone on a glaring hot day in the sun and I felt like screaming into the void.

So it depends

People need to talk less in general, though.

This is why I hate being back in the office OP. Boring arseholes like that with no self awareness that the rest of the office has switched off and is bored shitless.

I've just had to listen to a bloke talking about putting railway sleepers in his garden over the Easter hols .... the detail is incredible.

My brother likes to show me every photo of his holiday on his phone .... every single fecking one.

Well, develop a revolting skin condition, and drone on about what the gp said, the referral to the specialist, exactly what they prescribed, exactly how you felt on the medication, the change of medication, your medical insurance, the daily photographs of the rash you take.

Because the details of your excema are just as interesting as ‘what I’m going to do on a plane’, unless she’s planning to join the mile high club or hijack it.

These are expectations based on everything going smoothly and to plan. HA!

@VWT5

• went to the seaside
• swam naked in the sea
• a squirrel climbed on my head

Sounds like my last holiday, including the squirrel.

If it is somewhere I've been to and know well, or where I would love to go and want to find out more, or they were visiting overseas family, then I could put up with them telling me about it for a fair while.

Apart from that - about 3 minutes tops.