To be sick of strangers’ life stories?

[Chaney]

I know this will make me sound unsympathetic and cold. I’m generally not but, like most people, I have a lot on my plate and just can’t really take the mental load of strangers.

Twice this week I’ve had complete strangers tell me their sad life stories.

I got my hair done on Thursday and had a new stylist who spent the full three hours I was there yapping at me about all the awful things that had happened on her life. Poor woman really did have some awful events occur, but I was exhausted, drained, worried about stuff that’s going on it my own family, and left feeling like I paid £300+ to act as her personal therapist while stuck in a chair. I did resort to making non-commital “uh huh” noises and burying my head on my phone or a magazine after a while, but she persisted.

Then today I was in a small local shop. The owner was putting an order together for me while telling me about being widowed last year. Now, I certainly felt sympathy for her but I expressed it, but she just kept going on and on about the details of her late husband’s illness and premature death while very, very slowly fetching the items that were needed for my order.

I’ve always encountered this- strangers clinging on to me. I really don’t know why- I’m not especially approachable or engaging. I don’t share a lot about myself with people I don’t know. I’m assertive but it’s hard to ask someone to be quiet or move away from them when they’re in tears telling you about the abuse they’ve sustained, or a bereavement.

I think it’s gone much worse since Covid too- people just seem to want to over share.

Yanbu, my manager is like this - really believes misery loves company. Sounds bad but after four years of it in her department I've realised it's just an example if how I don't want to become. I've had some fucking horrendous times under her management and pulled myself together and moved on from it without ever bringing it to work or bringing it up and I quite often think when she's moaning about her own hardships that we all have them, some of us just prefer not to live, eat and breathe it. I get that some people need more help in life but surely at some point you realise you could be really heavily impacting a stranger with your tales of woe?

What annoys me is not so much the over-sharing but the talking AT you. Dumping everything on you then going about their day. It's especially grating when you know the person and they don't so much as ask about you!

Yanbu however I think the more technology takes over and the world becomes more online and less face to face the lonelier people become and will find anyone to off load to.

I have that face too. Everybody tells me every fucking thing. My DH tells me that I should have had a daytime tv show. I would have made a fortune. Meanwhile, I think I need to somehow learn to tell people that I need to develop some boundaries for my own mental health and ask them to stop using me to download. (I haven’t managed yet…)

I can't stand this. I'm getting better at shutting it down but I don't like being treated as a pair of ears, particularly as I would never be so selfish as to expect other people to listen to me drone on endlessly about my problems.

It sounds like the widow might have been more sympathetically received had the stylist not taken the piss by dumping her emotional baggage on your and charging you a fortune for the privilege.

Not sure what to suggest. My DH laughs at me because I have a tendency to befriend people who then talk me to death. I am getting better at boundaries though. Sometimes you have to be rude. But I get it, it's annoying.

I think social media has now created a culture where strangers now feel it's acceptable to offload. In my mother and grandmothers generations telling strangers your personal business wouldn't have been acceptable.

Menopause, trauma, bereavement, periods- nothing is taboo anymore. In some ways that's healthier. In others, where people are lonely or have a captive audience,it means strangers cop for it!

Bane of my life. I've got the opposite of resting bitch face, I've got resting "tell me your problems" face. My dad had it too, and I look just like him, although he genuinely was a nice person, which I'm not so sure about myself. I'm quite private and find the culture of oversharing really awkward.

I'm currently in hiding from my neighbour who really really needs a therapist to talk to.

Yes! Very true. I suppose I'm a bit old fashioned in my attitude - I'm the youngest child of parents who started late in life.

My nail technician is like this but as I’ve had a shit life too I don’t mind listening to her.

I can be very smiley to people (eg saying "morning" in the street to people I don't actually know or to neighbours I don't know well. I'll have a quick chat with supermarket checkout staff whilst I'm (swiftly) packing but also know I have a resting bitch face. In my early years I'd sometimes be called "reserved". I have been known to get my book out and avoid eye contact or you could plug in earphones to listen to a podcast or TED talk.. 🌹

Yikes !

I am autistic and avoid the hairdresser for this very reason. I am also self employed and have heaps of my own tragic tales, that I would never in a million years dream of sharing with a client.

I think it's really poor form to overshare when you are offering a paid service.

I get the same all the time . For example when i was at a children's party (I knew only 1 adult who was busy hosting), and whilst my ds was off on the bouncy castle I got the story of one woman's adult sons stage 4 cancer, that was before she told me her name. Then the children's entertainer told me all about the death of her husband. There was no phone signal and nowhere to escape to. Finally some man spent 15 minutes explaining his sons allergies in great detail.
On Saturday I was stood outside a shop trying to find my keys in my bag in a town i have never been to when an old lady came up to me, told me all about her dog dying and how lonely she was.
I am sympathetic but these people assume you are in the right mental place to be able to take on their problems, only have a one way dialogue and never take a hint.
I have no clue what the answer is.

Um....... You invited it first in both cases! How little self awareness / how much self-centredness can you have lol?

Whereas it seems OP didn't invite anything at all, didn't start going on about herself

It's probably just modern loneliness compared to how society used to be set up. Lots of old people who don't use social media and don't interact with anyone with social media are (understandably because they're isolated and so lonely) the worst and most intrusive oversharers I've met.

@ziggies wow you're probably one of those I told. So in response to 'my grandad died this morning' you don't say 'sorry' you decide to list all the deaths you know about. Think self awareness is lacking somewhere else.
I have never responded to someone saying their loved one was taken to hospital that day by redirecting to myself.

To be fair to the cashier, you started it.

I'm very sorry for your loss. But no, I wouldn't have been one of the ones you told as I don't usually talk about personal stuff with strangers. If a random stranger told me about a death, I would have smiled and nodded politely and gone on my way quickly.

Unlike me, I think those strangers were trying to be kind by "connecting" or sympathising with you, albeit in a clumsy way.

I know the checkout man responded the wrong way, but really, people may have poor social skills, or are flustered at this stranger's sudden revelation, or are trying to show you you're not alone, or are just as lonely/isolated/in need of a listening ear as you, etc...

In general, lovely chance encounters aside, I think it's not a great idea to expect strangers to be a skilled listening ear who reacts the right way that you want. Friends, family or maybe even a therapist are better for that.

I can have sympathy for how lonely a lot of people must feel but this isn't a great habit. I think social skills are like muscle, some have better skills than others but it's something we all need to keep using in order to get the best out of them.

Ok before the inevitable pile on, perhaps in empathising with the op o should have remembered some people need to have every last detail because they delight in picking holes on here.

Obviously the cashier did the generic how's your day thing first.
Obviously the neighbours, as I live in a tiny street, asked if the ambulance was for us. I didn't go knocking to tell them as I was a bit busy.

Don't bother @ing me again, on reflection your first comment was so rude by choice I don't want to engage anymore.

people seem to feel free to tell me gory details of their past, present and future health. I usually say, you have my sympathy but I can’t take details (true, I actually feel faint or sick). Some seem to hear oooh, tel me more, tell me more!

This is me too. I just cannot see the attraction in talking to me, but it happens all the time! 🤷‍♀️

I spend the best part of three hours at the hairdresser for my cut and colour but pay less than half what the OP pays.

Too many people mistake 'how are you' for the sake of politeness for 'tell me all your life problems'

I discussed this with friends a few days ago we have one friend who is a CHRONIC OVERSHARER and we hear absolutely everything about her marriage-seperation- divorce- new relationship In sometimes excruciating and personal detail and she works in the beauty trade our entire appointments revolve around this. Not just her friends- all her clients

I've actually told her people may want to come to offload to you or just relax and not hear your drama, that lasted 2 mins.

A friend said "it's because of the industry (they both) work in you feel like you need to fill a silence" and I said well then ASK ABOUT THE OTHER PERSON or talk about more light hearted things

Drives me mad!!