When people talk about places that are not local to you and expect you to know what they are on about

[tenpencemixup]

Apologies for typos and rubbish formatting I'm on my phone.
I present my case:
My inlaws including my sil and her family all moved away from their childhood town. They have made their lives together in this new area. We visit as often work/school /our family life allows. We know the route from the motorway to their house, how to get to the tesco express shop for supplies, the park and the church hall where they once held a birthday party. But We don't have an encyclopaedic knowledge of their town and surrounding area.

An example of a conversation I can have with them. We arrive at their house to visit them. Sil and her children are not in. I was expecting her to be here. My children were looking forward to seeing their cousins. I ask Mil where she is. She's at Merryfield * (fictional ambiguous name for anonymity). Oh, I say. My brain desperately searching for a clue. I wonder if it's a person, and I've miss heard her- Mary field? Could it be the recreation grounds, a garden centre,. Nope I'm still not sure. So I ask again. What's that. It turns out it a soft play centre. Ah, I see. I think to myself I wonder when she will get back. Is it far I ask? Mil answers, it's on bridge street. I've no idea where bridge street is,I reply. Mil says it's near the big pet shop. Me, silently seething. I don't know where that is, how far away is it? Mil, it's only 15 minutes, but she's gone with Freddie and Emily's mum. Me silently, who the fuck are Freddie and Emily and why should that affect the distance to softplay? Adding people who you have no idea about in to the conversation just makes it even harder to navigate. I tilt my head and look puzzled. It turns out that they have a regular softplay date and Emily has a dance lesson afterwards so that dictates what time they leave. Omg, it's painful.

I always make a note of qualifying places with a general noun when talking to people who aren't local. So for example our garden centre is called Whitehall. That could be anything. So I would either say just we are going to the garden centre, or we are going to Whitehall - the garden centre.

Sorry, but I had to laugh!

I know what you mean though, I've got a friend who's lived in this area since he was about 3 yo (so 60 odd years). I've only lived here a mere 30 odd years, but he's forever rabbiting on about when, say, the dry cleaners used to be the Gas Board showroom, or his friend attending , which is now , or the when the Co-op was a cinema. And he expects me to know what he's talking about. How the hell am I meant to know any of this stuff when I didn't even live here at that time?

So your problem is with people not being clear and precise in their speech?

What's your AIBU?

This goes in the same box as the people that tell you turn left where x used to be. Or tell me I need to speak to Susan who's maiden name was Smith but they can't remember her married name. Susan has been married for 30 years. 29 of which are from before i worked there.

Yes my mother can talk the hindleg off a donkey without giving the one crucial piece of information that allows it all to make sense. Your op did make laugh! Good to know Im not alone.

Yup. I know what you mean. My neighbour often says “You Know Mary, who works in Tescos” or “Jim, the vicar”. I don’t have the heart to say, not a clue love! It happens when the person lives in a small world and thinks your world is the same.

I know this one. It's to do with people being wrapped up in themselves, and being unwilling unable to imagine that anyone can have a different world view/ life experience to them otherwise known as thick, or at least uneducated .

Maybe we have the same mil, op?

I feel your pain OP. My mum will come and tell me some story about Sam and June's daughter and where they are. I have no idea who sam and June are let alone their kids. THEN my dad will come in and tell me the exact same story but with a minor change and they will bicker over who got it right!

I know what you mean though, I've got a friend who's lived in this area since he was about 3 yo (so 60 odd years). I've only lived here a mere 30 odd years, but he's forever rabbiting on about when, say, the dry cleaners used to be the Gas Board showroom, or his friend attending , which is now , or the when the Co-op was a cinema. And he expects me to know what he's talking about. How the hell am I meant to know any of this stuff when I didn't even live here at that time? grin

Lol.

There's a town near me that has a place in the town centre known as "library corner", because a prominent building, on the corner, used to be a library. So far, so straightforward.

In the 60s or so, that library closed and was relocated to an equally prominent location, also on a corner, further up the hill from "library corner". This caused no end of confusion to newer residents, especially as people would often give directions that involved going up to library corner and turning left etc. For ease of reference, they can be referred to as "old" and "new" library corner.

They have now built a new library. Thankfully, it isn't on a corner.

The same town also has a road called "School Hill" by everyone. You'll never find it on google maps or in a street atlas, because it is actually part of the High Street and doesn't have a school in it. I've never found anyone who can say for certain that there was ever a school there, either.

I think it's all part of a plot by indigenous people to confuse incomers.

Oh, and the co-op is now an auction gallery, but people still refer to it as the co-op.

I can see it's rude & annoying that someone goes out when you come to visit!

But don't you have gmap app on your phone? Just google it

This conversation is so familiar, my godmother is like that. She now lives where she grew up, everyone knows everyone. Despite living in London for 40 years before going back and knowing that I have no clue who "The Bishops", "Old John" or "Mrs White from Strawberry Cottage" actually are, she talks like that when I'm there.

Where I live is like that too, there's few street signs and people don't give directions in the normal way it's more like "Do you know the dress maker on the corner opposite Ben's shop?, Well his house is on the same street"....

Lakie, your 'library corner' has reminded me of when Mum and I were going to visit some friends at their new house in an area we hadn't been to before. Part of the directions were "when you're on the A%%, turn right at the War Memorial". We were both good at directions, but we couldn't see a WM on the A%%. We drove up and down the same stretch of road a few times - no WM. We even asked someone who pointed back the way we'd come. Nope. No WM. We eventually asked someone else who told us the WM had been moved the previous week to make way for a road widening scheme - fortunately he also told us what corner to turn at!

My mum does this - I did live where she lives for 8 years as a child, but haven't spent more than a few days at a time there since I was 18. This means obviously I only have a child's memory of places walkable from her house, the area around my school, the town centre, but not all the people her age (especially ones she didn't actually know 25 years ago), the driving routes to nearby towns or places I never or rarely went to, and if I did it was as a passenger once in a blue moon, supermarkets, schools and attractions that have been built in the last 20 years etc.

My mum is indignant about me not having a long term adult residents view of where she lives, but simultaneously has no idea at all about where I live and won't even remember that the school holiday dates are different or make any effort to understand where my kids are in the school system despite expecting me to be fascinated by her 3rd hand accounts of minutiae of my niece's school experience.

Yes, yes to the "Jane - you know Jane, she's Brian and Sue's daughter... Well Jane we bumped into Jane at Tesco and she has put on an awful lot of weight, she used to be so pretty didn't she? And her hair looked so much better darker, her son's really struggling at college apparently, he used to be such hard worker, I've forgotten his name, what was happening name, you remember, he used to be at (school I have vaguely heard the name of but have no connection to)..." I have no idea who any of these people are...

Some people are very wrapped up in their own worlds and can't understand that their world isn't central to everyone they care about.

Haha, this is my MIL too, it's so frustrating! When I look to my DH for clues he's often as bemused as I am.

😂 My mum does this, except she talks about people I've never met, constantly, and their medical conditions.

Some people are very wrapped up in their own worlds and can't understand that their world isn't central to everyone they care about

They're trying to maintain contact with their children. Conversation isn't about information often, it's about maintaining a social connection. If they don't know enough about DCs world to talk about it (and often DCs deliberately keep their world private to avoid unwanted comment by DPs) then it's either politics, the weather, or people you don't know about, isn't it?

Not really mere my dad manages to have interesting conversations with me which don't rely on intimate knowledge of everyone and everything he knows, and he's older and less mobile than my mum. He does talk about documentaries he's watched on TV or things on the news, but doesn't assume that I've watched them too. That's the difference, not pretending everyone shares the knowledge and trivia and experience inside your head!

We all have long conversations and close relationships with friends without knowing everyone they know and every detail of their neighborhood.