To not care about people I have never met!

[topcat2014]

Now, for context, I am not talking about people in the news. And I would never wish ill health or bad luck on anyone.

However, DW likes to give me a run down of all the people she has dealings with each day - none of whom I have met. Thus, I can't visualise any of them or keep track of their stories.

Thus, I come up as disinterested - which is kind of true - but the reality is I just hear it like Charlie Brown's teacher "wah, wah, wah".

I think it is that I find it hard to follow the conversation when I have no idea of the people. A bit like I struggle to follow the Archers.

I don't mind this if I vaguely know who someone is and/or it's an interesting anecdote. Which, incidentally, is the entire content of this thread.

What I can't stand though is when my parents go on and on about other people's health problems, which they do a lot. A particular low point was my father leaning over as we waited for dd's drama performance to tell me about a woman at church who had had a ring inserted to deal with her prolapse.

I brought my mum, sister and BIL tickets to an interactive theatre.
When she came home and I asked her how it was she proceeded to tell me the life story of the family sitting g next to them, their names, what they did for work etc etc they weren't part of the show just audience!
I spent a fortune on tickets and she had more to say about the random family sat next to her that the show.

No my mum isn't lonely she has lots of friend is always out and about and we live with her.

It’s a bit like new parents boring on about prams, weaning and toilet training. Old people bore on about illness and death. It’s their main interest innit

I guess so but my parents take it to extremes. I don't want to know about some random woman's vagina!

And I will never know what happened to Susan's grandson

You must ask her @TheSpottedZebra !!
I want to know now.

And what about the ear chewing Parakeet? Was it put down?! People have to know.....

TheSpottedZebra I'm really worried about Susan's poor little grandson now! WHAT HAPPENED to the poor little baby?! I need you to find out! I hope he lived!

My mum does this, but with the added bonus of auto repeat! It goes something like this.....

Mum... ' I saw Brenda in the shop yesterday, you know the fruit and veg shop next to the butchers, well i saw Brenda in there yesterday, she had popped in for some oranges, because her grand daughter is visiting and she likes oranges, anyway, she was saying that her daughters MIL has gone to Spain for a week, i can't remember whereabouts she said though, it might have been Salou, i'm not sure though, anyway, she was buying some oranges for her Grand daughter, cos she likes oranges, but anyway, i think it was Salou, it might have been somewhere else, but anyway Brenda was saying that the oranges from that shop are very reasonable in price so she always goes there for a few for her grand daughter when she visits, cos she likes oranges. I said it was unusual for a child to prefer oranges to sweets, but that's what she prefers apparently. Her Grandma will probably bring her some rock back from Spain, do they sell rock in Spain? i think she's gone to Salou, they might not sell it there. Anyway, Brenda was saying.............

Me. Thud.

My mother does this, and usually in a bitchy/gossipy way. "You know my friend Sue?" "No mum I don't have a clue who you mean" "Well she's put on so much weight she struggled to get through the turnstiles on the tube!"

OK mum lets break this down - you felt compelled to tell me how a (alleged) friend of you, who I don't know, is fat. Why? Does it make you feel better about yourself? Less fat? If you're going to tell a story to me about a stranger tell a funny one!

I'm howling at these because they're so like my Mam. Why only this morning I got stories about the women she shared rooms with on the labour wards. Dsis and I are in our 30s, but one was terribly annoyed to have had a 4th girl, another was a nosey bitch who's husband was quite useless. I think it was because of a general conversation about shared wards but I got these women's whole story, including dithering trying to remember the middle name the annoying one gave her DS.

that woman with the teeth behind the counter.

I wonder if she's any relation to Margaret With The Face that my mother knew HarrySnotter?

The thing that worries me most, is that we wimmin are supposed to turn into our mothers (like some sort of genetic time bomb) . . .

. . . I look more like her every time I see myself in the mirror, and every now and then, I catch myself speaking the same words with the same intonation . . .

. . . and one dayI dread that I will hear myself say to my DD "You DO know her. She used to drink snowballs but wouldn't eat the cherries so nobody could have a fag because she filled the ashtray up with fruit from her drinks. She had a purple jumper. She DID! - You wanted one just like it but you were too young. Of COURSE you remember her."

I’m feeling left out now after reading this thread because my DMum isn’t like this! 😩 My DDad is a bit of a nosy old bugger though and we do occasionally hear about bits and pieces happening in the close that they live in but nothing monotonous. He does, however, like to drone on about work at any given time and we all tend to roll our eyes and switch off! 🤣

My Dad is just as bad he was driving me home home one day and he said John Smith used to live on that road ,me John Smith ? Yes you know him he was in your class at primary school, me, no i don't know Him, Dad yes you do he had Diabetes and twin brothers his Dad was an alcoholic,.maybe he was in your sister's class?, When we do finally establish who John Smith is I do vaguely remember him but he was ent in either mine or my sister's class he was in the class in between

Yeah my housemate does this about her family and work colleagues and it's super frustrating, I truly could not care less I just politely smile and nod and occasionally interject with vague phrases

Well, thank your lucky stars none of you will ever do this, because as you age, your world will never become smaller......

Hopefully I won't drive away friends by telling everyone I meet their personal problems no.

I almost spat my tea out once when my mum was lamenting the fact that my brother never tells her anything. And this was after my brother had asked her to please not go around telling everyone his business. The lack of awareness is fascinating.

Most of the older people in my family do this and I just nod and smile. My very DFIL (now deceased) was the worst for it He would start a long rambling story : ‘you remember so and so, he used to sit near the choir in mass, the one whose daughter broke her leg in the playground etc etc’ and the inevitable end to the story was alway ‘well he dropped down dead’. No one died in their sleep or passed away quietly after a long illness, it was always ‘dropped down dead’. It happened incredibly frequently too, to the point that when DH came home from his weekly visit my customary greeting was ‘who dropped down dead this week?’

DFIL died very suddenly after a stroke a few years ago and DH and I like to think that all over our area other elderly men are regaling their family with the sad story of how a man they never heard of dropped down dead’.

@HarrySnotter I laughed so much at your post , my parents are exactly like that.

@Ihopeyourcakeisshit I think perhaps we're not the only ones.

AFPH123 but surely you remember Gary? Gary, you know, he was at school with you. Well perhaps it was your brother. Anyway, Gary's ex Barbara, her cousin was the hairdresser, the one that did Louise's perm that time, well she had a baby to that guy from the garage, you know him, the one with the nose, his brother used to go to Joe's with our Karen, well his uncle Bob''s neighbour's dad died.

Haaaaa! This is spot on what my MIL does with DH. He literally has NO idea who she's talking about most of the time. And he definitely doesn't care!!

I work in a hospital and my in laws love to guess what their friends really have wrong with them when they're admitted.

So bob smith will be admitted - not in my hospital- with a broken leg and will have planned rehab. In laws will tut and mutter that there must be something AWFUL to keep him in THAT long. They'll ask me my professional opinion about whether I think his treatment sounds correct, because when their friend Gina broke her wrist in 1984 she wasn't admitted for that long

My MIL takes it a step further, "Ooh, she'd hate me to tell you this but Janet's having awful trouble with her bowels!"

A. DH and I don't know Janet.

B. We don't care.

C. That's a delightful subject while we're eating.

And worst of all

D. If you know she'd hate you telling people, why are you telling us??!

Then she wonders why we don't tell her much about our lives

This is my MIL. she doesn't really leave the house, doesn't work, doesn't have a socal life. She spends her time telling me all about people I don't know but mainly people from her past who she hasn't even spoken to for at least 20 years!!
I know everything there is to know about every extended family member of theirs.

She knows nothing of my family or my life. She doesn't ask and shows no interest! I've been with her son for 17 years and given her 2 grandchildren!

My lovely dad is the worst offender in our family. He just can't help himself. He has numerous boring hobbies which usually involve going places with lots of other retired men, and he invariably meets new people at these things. He'll then recount conversations he had with Bob or Dave or Frank in exhaustive detail.

"So I says to him, did you come via the M6? And he says, no, I went off at the A6 and then joined the B6263 from there. I says, I always avoid that way cos there's a big pothole just past the turnoff, you know, the one with the phone box. He says, oh. I says, I bent my axle by driving over it once..."

He even reports people's interjections and deviations, like if they start saying one thing and then correct themselves. I don't know these people, I probably never will, and I couldn't care less how they made their way to some game fair in Carlisle!

God, MiL does this!
Min fact, she spends so long telling me about the past history and boring connections of the people she’s taking about and how she knows them that I switch off and by the time I come round again, I have no idea who she is actually talking about and it’s too late to ask!