To get very irritated with people who are easily distracted?

[Unreasonableellie]

I'm wondering if it's a me or them situation. I'll give a few examples of what I mean.

If I'm on the phone speaking to my mum she will constantly have interruptions. For example my dad will keep butting in in the background asking questions, or she'll say "hang on my mobile/house phone is ringing" and leave me waiting while she goes off to answer another call,

She lives in an apartment block and if I go to see her before we get to her flat we will have made several stops for her to chat to neighbours. It's not the neighbours approaching my mum it's the other way round. Sometimes I'm in a hurry and it takes half an hour to get in or out of her home.

My sister does it too. She rings me and then starts conversations with her husband or she stops our conversation to watch something on tv. If we go out anywhere she starts up random conversations with people. If we are out for a meal or coffee she starts telling the waiter her life story. Or starts chatting to the people on the table next to us.

As a result trying to do anything takes absolutely forever.

I now have a colleague who is like this. We will be working on a task together and there are one million distractions so she will answer a non urgent call or text, wander off to find a pen or envelope for someone, say hi and stops for a chat with every single person that goes by. A task that should take an hour ends up taking half a day as a result.

I've been so busy the last few years that I've found I have to be quite on the ball with everything and I wonder if these people are being annoying or if I'm being impatient.

It sounds like you have no patience. All of the above is very normal.

It's you.

Well you're going to get a thousand posts that tell you that she's obviously got ADHD and can't possibly help it but my mum (without ADHD) is the same! She'll be standing chatting to my neighbours while I'm stood waiting at the front door and eventually I'll give up and shut the door. Or on the phone and my dad will need to be told what to wear (!) so I have to wait until he's sorted. And yet if she's in the middle of something when I ring, rather than saying 'I'll ring you back in 5' and putting the phone down, she'll spend 5 mins telling me why she can't talk so we could have actually had a 5 min chat and been done. It's a mother thing!

I've been reading this with interest, but oh - what's that outside? Sorry, back in a bit 😂

Maybe the above is normal, so I think I must also be impatient as that kind of thing really annoys me too. Its like they think their time is more important than yours and you can just sit around waiting til they have finished whatever else they have decided to do whilst in your company.

Honestly, it sounds more like you get pissed off when the focus isn't entirely on you

That's it isn't it.

If someone rings me and I've stopped whatever I'm doing to talk to them then they leave me waiting on the phone while they do 10 other things.

Some people are naturally hyper extrovert, they are prepared to have things take a bit longer as they take so much pleasure in talking to people.
I can talk to strangers, easy as pie, I have a friend the same. When we are together it does take ages sometimes, but mostly it's fine.

I don't at all but sometimes there is only a short time to do something.

I mean at work there are deadlines and targets and there really isn't time to be constantly answering personal calls and texts and having long chats to everyone who walks by.

I do like chatting to people and do make conversation with staff in shops and colleague but I find it a bit extreme at times.

But willing to accept if I'm impatient.

The thing is I don't find everyone like this it's a handful of people.

IDK, I do think it's rude to be half watching TV while on the phone to someone. MIL does this and it drives me mad especially as she has the volume on about 603 so when DH is calling her all you can hear is AND LOOK AT THIS LOVELY PROPERTY, A PERIOD HOUSE FROM 1874 IT HAS EXPOSED BEAMS AND WONDERFUL- while you're trying to tell her about the DC's latest milestone or something. And she complains she can't hear us - turn the telly down FFS or god forbid turn it off!

And at work sometimes you should be focused on a task not attending to other random things.

I do have ADHD BTW so I am sympathetic to distractions - and sometimes I think they are a bit unavoidable e.g. your mum's examples sound unavoidable to me - but there are situations where there is a social norm/expectation to have your full attention on someone.

Thanks @BertieBotts I do wonder if I've become impatient probably as a result of having a lot on my plate.

However at work we e missed deadlines because of this particular person and it has a knock on effect on others who are waiting on us to complete a task.

The examples with my family are more casual but I wonder why someone has phoned me just to tell me to hang on while they finish watching Coronation Street

I don't think it's just you. These kind of things annoy me a lot as well.

People may be unexpectedly delayed or distracted without knowing about it before they called you. But in those circumstances, they should have the consideration and good manners to either apologise to you and explain what's happened, or tell the other person they're on the phone to you and ask the other person to wait.

If what the other person is saying/doing is urgent, and will take a long time, they should tell you that and ask if they can call you later.

Anybody would get frustrated when they are kept waiting for a while with no apology or explanation.

As for the situation at work, it is simply not on that deadlines are being missed because of this colleague. Something needs to be done about it.

The kind of people who ‘ooh, look, a squirrel….!’ when you are in the middle of a conversation with them, are really annoying and very rude! Friend did this to me when we went for coffee recently. We were chatting, I asked her something, whereupon she spotted someone else she knew across the room, (obviously more interesting), mouthed ‘hello!’ to them and proceeded to have a lengthy mimed and mouthed interaction with them!

I chat to people as well but I'm mindful of being rude to the person I'm with. There's no problem with saying hello to neighbours but chatting to them while someone is waiting for you, is really rude.

If I'm busy and someone calls, I call them back when I have time to talk. Your colleague sounds incompetent and I wouldn't have any tolerance for their behaviour.

You are not unreasonable. This drives me crazy too, and something else that drives me nuts is when i am in the middle of a task and people think they can walk into my office and ask me a line of questions - WITHOUT politely asking "do you have a minute to go over these queries"? Grrr - I am normally meek and mild but you have just hit my weak spot.

God i hate this, just have one conversation

I think people can be disrespectful and take advantage of someone they don’t see as assertive. So, they don’t prioritise you in their interaction with you, which is rude. Where possible, try and have a word. You have to stand up for yourself and command some basic respect. Just be careful to work on yourself also, see where you maybe going wrong.

MIL does this! She calls you and then goes and answers her home phone in the middle! H now puts the call straight down when she does this and won't pick up for the rest of the day as he finds it so annoying.

YANBU

It fucks me off immensely. It's rude and selfish.
If someone does this to me, I just end the interaction. Their time isn't more valuable than mine so why the fuck should I hang around and wait for them?

There's a chap I talk to used to talk to on dog walks in the local park. You'll be mid-conversation and he'll just distractedly start talking about something else entirely that's grabbed his attention. I used to just stand like a lemon and wait for him to re-engage with me. Fuck that, I just walk off now. Rude cunt.

People who answer their moblie phone to someone like their husband, to answer a querie about where they left the milk etc, when i am with them irl, do my nut

People who answer their moblie phone to someone like their husband, to answer a querie about where they left the milk etc, when i am with them irl, do my nut