Can't do woman talk? Am I broken?

[viixie]

Okay so I'm a grown woman but I just find small talk boring I've never felt like I've fit in.

I've just been for a walk with some female friends and I've always felt like I've never fit in with females. I've always felt like the odd one out. They will chat and gossip about people and work and their lives etc and I don't talk as much. I have always been the quieter one but I find this kind of small talk boring. I feel like I'm there because I have to be to try and seem normal rather than to enjoy myself. It's an effort for me to try and fit in in this conversation. I am aware they are probably doing 70% of the chat and I'm meeting them back with 30% if you see what I mean. If I'm in a group of people I will let the others do most of the talking, I find it draining and uninteresting. Of course I pretend to be interested and try to involve myself but inside I find it draining. I'd rather be at home, I much prefer one on one company where I will then feel comfortable being myself and having a chat. I feel like I never really let anyone know or see the real me unless it's someone close like my partner or close family. I feel I am never fully relaxed or myself with anyone else.

Am I broken? Anyone else?

@Coronawireless

I think that Eleanor Roosevelt quote has contributed to some of the hurt feelings on here. Yes it can be very lofty to have conversations about ideas but as many pp have pointed out, “people” conversations are a source of bonding, oiling the wheels, bedrock of social interaction etc etc. It’s not a signifier of stupidity.

I worked with a lady who I thought was a good friend.. all she would do was gossip about other people. If we were out, she would feel the need to pass comment on stuff like stranger's eyebrows, or teeth. When I look back, our conversations were her bitching, and me nodding and not knowing what to say (I was also sat there with shit eyebrows and teeth!). She was not stupid, and I would never call anyone that, but she lacked depth.

I don't think anyone on here can genuinely say that hand on heart they haven't had a conversation with a friend about anyone else at all.. but some people to make it the be all and end all of their conversations. My neighbour is one.. I hear her on the street all the time. All she does is gossip, and about stuff she has no clue about too. She has made some awful assumptions about me and spread them as gospel.

@WoodliceCollection

WTF is "woman talk" though? Within the last 24 hours I've had conversations with women on matters ranging from anaesthetic methodology to sandwich fillings. I don't think all of these can be more trivial than Important Men's Conversations about golf/cycling? Which are the womanly ones so I can work out if I did them right?

Hard to say without hearing the actual conversations. The faux-naïveté though, if that was a feature, would grate on me personally.

@shouldistop

The fact that you think you can replace woman talk with trivial chatter is really sad. What do men talk about that's so interesting?

This is so true. What do men who don't know each other well say that is more interesting?

I agree that small talk can be awkward, but it's not all always awkward. You can't tell everybody everything that matters.

And I just realise I have done the same about my neighbour.... I might be a tad bitter. She shares absolute untruths about me to anyone who has an ear. I hear it all and it hurts.

The men I work with talk more shite than anyone I’ve met !! Talk about superficial ! It’s just dressed up as more important than people’s kids, families, childcare issues , or what you’re making for tea, which is a lot of what me and a couple of my colleagues will matter about .

Apparently a group of men that don’t know each other that well will completely forgo the organic social foreplay of small talk and jump immediately into conversations about Faust, Chopin and Nuclear Fission but women only talk about Love Island, hosiery or their child getting a peanut stuck up their nose.

@XenoBitch see I don’t get this. You hear enough of what she says about you to know it’s literally made up, she doesn’t know you and you don’t know her but she tells all and sundry all about you? Something doesn’t add up there. What is she saying and how come you hear everything she says? Are you not at work/out a lot, surely no one is sat by a window listening to your neighbours talk all day?

Morgoth !

me too!

Viixie : Do you know about Mumsnet?
How about that for a conversation starter?

Oooh you are aweeeful! I've heard that place is a right nest of vipers. Full of women .... talking!

(Not serious, just in case that needed pointing out)

@Morgoth haha quite !! the only difference between men’s and women’s small talk in my opinion is that women are more likely to downplay and minimize everything and men more likely to maximize and make more of things. So let’s say Deb at work comes in to the office and says she’s just booked a flight to California. ‘Yes just popping over for two weeks, my son lives there’ ‘Oh that’s amazing! How long has he lived there?’ ‘Oh just a year or so, he’s at uni there, he quite likes it’ ‘oh fab, well done him!’ ‘Oh you know he fancied it so thought he’d go for it, bless him’

Jack from work pops in ‘just booked a flight to California, with BA as well, top airline to fly with!’ ‘Oh fab that sounds good!’ ‘Yep my son lives out there. At a top uni, he’s a real go getter! Been to California twice now, unreal place. Honestly you have to go, I’ve been twice now!’ ‘Yes I’ve been once, it’s lovely isn’t it?’ ‘Yeah well when we go it’s the full experience, rental car, son showing us round, it’s amazing, you should go’ ‘yes.. I’ve been...’

These are the usual encounters in our office !! This doesn’t apply to everyone. Some people are just normal. But not many 😂

I like this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt.
“Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”

Thats the second time this has been mentioned. I must have a small mind. To me, people are everything. They are fascinating. Even the most everyday person has a story to tell, something to teach you, overcome some sort of hardship, or can tell a brilliant joke!
I love people. I think people are worthy subjects for discussion.

[quote Blueeyedgirl21]@XenoBitch see I don’t get this. You hear enough of what she says about you to know it’s literally made up, she doesn’t know you and you don’t know her but she tells all and sundry all about you? Something doesn’t add up there. What is she saying and how come you hear everything she says? Are you not at work/out a lot, surely no one is sat by a window listening to your neighbours talk all day?[/quote]
I don't work so am at home. She talks with all and sundry in the front garden, and she is loud. No nice way of saying that... she has a loud voice.
She has made comments about me being in police cars.. that I must have committed a crime (I have MH issues, the police deal with me a lot)... I live in the house I shared with my ex... a while ago I was cleaning up the front garden. I heard her tell someone (HE is coming, HE is coming who? the bill payer). I pay all my bills. Total speculation on her part. If I am picking up my dog's poo in my garden, she has to tell someone about that too... that I am vile for letting my dog poo in my garden. I can't deal with it... the worse thing is, she is a nurse. I had a huge public MH crisis in my street last year and she sent my EX and email saying I can talk to her anytime. No fucking thanks.

Ouch to that Roosevelt quote!
Bloody hell.

I’m the same op, hate small talk and find very few people that I gel with. I find people get on my nerves and I can find excuses not to meet up with female friends easily.
I’ve told my partner on many occasions that I’m just a bit unsociable lol. I’m fine with it.. it seems to annoy me more when I’m put into/I put myself into social situations and can’t figure out why I’m not enjoying it. Find it easier to decline and enjoy my own company.

"Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”

Except of course that great novelists and dramatists basically discuss people.

From someone who likes small talk with people I like - it's because I genuinely want to know how their week has been, what their kids have been up to, what's going on at work. People interest me and I like heading their perspectives, stories and updates. Also really enjoy more substantial conversations, but find that when you don't know someone that well it can take a while to move into it.

Having said that, small talk with people I dislike is the worst, precisely because I don't care and don't want to share my own stories about my life with people I don't like. Luckily there aren't many of these!

Maybe their chat is boring? I had a couple friends who just talked about new cars, handbags, houses etc. I was so fucking bored because I'm really not money orientated in the slightest.
I'm quite a spiritual person and prefer spending my time with like minded people who enjoy interesting conversation.

Yep, most authors wouldn't get published if they only discussed ideas! Most non fiction is people based. Awful quote from a complete snob !

The thing that I don't understand OP is the people you don't want to talk to are your friends.
Not colleagues or neighbours or people you can choose to ignore if you want to. I assume you've chosen to be friends with these people.
Why? If you'd rather be at home than with them, and find them so mind numbingly dull?

@TatianaBis

"Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”

Except of course that great novelists and dramatists basically discuss people.

Well, of course. And even the greatest geniuses spend a significant proportion of their lives thinking or talking about their dinner, where they went on their holidays, what their spouse did the other night which was so incredibly frustrating, the mutual friend they saw the other day and how the conversation went, and what colour to paint the hallway. Nobody spends all their conversational time discussing Russian literature or the laws of thermodynamics, even if they are very clever.

@XenoBitch she sounds bored but so do you a little bit. Why don’t you go and explain to her why the police are round a lot, she might surprise you ? My mum had a neighbor who had the police round a lot and my mum started to worry they were some sort of master criminal. Turns out they were involved with the police as they had a child who has MH issues and ran away a lot and got into scrapes, Police would often be called to descalate and help. If it’s really affecting you hearing her talk about you it’s worth saying something to her. If it helps the people listening probably don’t pay her much mind, it’s probably just out of boredom

Well, of course. And even the greatest geniuses spend a significant proportion of their lives thinking or talking about their dinner, where they went on their holidays, what their spouse did the other night which was so incredibly frustrating, the mutual friend they saw the other day and how the conversation went, and what colour to paint the hallway. Nobody spends all their conversational time discussing Russian literature or the laws of thermodynamics, even if they are very clever.

Quite. I actually meant in their work, but the fact is Henry James had conversations about the best directions to get to Rye like everyone else.

Better tell the entire sociological community that thinking or discussing people is for thickos

[quote Blueeyedgirl21]@XenoBitch she sounds bored but so do you a little bit. Why don’t you go and explain to her why the police are round a lot, she might surprise you ? My mum had a neighbor who had the police round a lot and my mum started to worry they were some sort of master criminal. Turns out they were involved with the police as they had a child who has MH issues and ran away a lot and got into scrapes, Police would often be called to descalate and help. If it’s really affecting you hearing her talk about you it’s worth saying something to her. If it helps the people listening probably don’t pay her much mind, it’s probably just out of boredom[/quote]
Thank you. I can't. She will gossip about whatever I tell her. She talks about her patients, and names them too, to people she should not be talking to patients about. She is a gossip, plain and simple. I don't want to be involved with people like that. Most have nothing nice to say about others. I can't be doing with that negativity in my life. Thank you anyway.