Am I supposed to care about friends of my sister?

[Bonkersworknonsense]

My sister has a few close friends that she met as an adult (no one from childhood). I’ve got more of a mix of childhood friends and adult friends. Consequently she knows a few of my friends, but I know none of hers.

She’ll tell me about her friends’ lives, so and so got divorced, other friend tripped and broke her arm. On and on. And if I don’t show visible concern and ask about them (for weeks following whatever incident) I can tell she thinks I’m unfeeling, she’ll repeat the story and tell stronger details till I feign massive concern. Our mum did this too, expected me to get upset that old Tommy lost his favourite pipe, or Barbara got dropped from the knitting club.

Am I a monster? In all honesty, I don’t care about these people any more than I’d care for strangers in the next town, or Nepal, or on Jupiter. Sad about the pipe, but sort of theoretically, not emotionally engaged with it. Is this normal? My sister doesn’t think so.

I am a bit depressed (for years), but also am
a different temperament than my mum and sister. Neither is right or wrong … or maybe I am? It seems kind of exhausting to be invested in strangers, but perhaps others don’t find it so?

It doesn't matter what you are "expected" to do by others, OP.
Do what suits you, nobody else will actually put you first.
😉

My mum talks a lot about her carers’ lives and people I haven’t seen for years. I make appropriate noises but I’m not invested at all, even though the carers aren’t strangers to me. They’re nice enough, but they go to mum’s to help her, not to make friends with me. I think your sister’s expectations are unrealistic.

If you were so exquisitely gifted with a higher level of empathy than the rest of us, you’d understand the OP’s pov. As it is, you seem unable even to pretend a little. You’re more invested in empathising with the people the OP is writing about at 2nd hand than with the OP whose post is right in front of you, asking for support.

She and your mum probably don't care about your friends either, from childhood or not, but feign interest because they care about you.

I think you do the 'oh no, what a shame' but then if and when she pulls you up for not being further invested in their trials and tribulations you need to explain to her that, to be honest, why should you be interested in people you just don't know..

Just tell us what Barbara did, OP!

She was a secret crocheter.

Couldn't give a shit about randoms at the best of times, unless they are vulnerable and I might be in a position to help in some way.
You probably have more patience for this than I would OP with your sisters friends.

They may be "randoms" to the OP, but they are clearly important to the OP's sister, so I think it's rude that any talk of them would be dismissed so easily.

As an example, a friend of a friend has recently been diagnosed with cancer. My friend is supporting them, which I know is taking its toll on her. She will talk to me about what is happening with her friends treatment etc. There is no way I would just ignore this as the other friend is a "random" to me.

I have a friend who used to tell me in huge detail about the lives of friends of hers who I'd met a few times many years previously when we were all in college. I liked them well enough at the time, but my interest didn't extend to the details of their current personal lives. Interestingly my friend stopped doing this when she moved in with a new partner who has kids, and she became busier and happier. I think all that talk was driven by boredom and perhaps loneliness. Don't know if any of this applies to your sister, OP.

Obvious you aren’t going to feel any emotional concern for somebody you’ve never met - I suspect they feel you aren’t bothered about the stories they are telling you/what’s going on in their lives.

Remembering a story they have told you and asking about it later shows you were listening. Looking blank and saying “Sandra who? What happened to her arm?” suggests you weren’t paying much attention.

Bill Clinton apparently used to remember one fact about everyone he met, so he could say “Ah Bob, how’s the golf going? Chantal, how are the twins?” and people loved it. Obviously Bill Clinton did not actually give a shit about Bob from Idaho’s golf game. Just think of it like that.

I must be a cold hearted cow as well then. My husband comes home from work - 4 days a week. and sometimes starts blathering on about this woman and that woman, and the problems she's been having with her husband, or her mom, or her neighbour. Then he goes on about a bloke who's been having problems with his teenage son, or how difficult work is for them and how they're struggling with this and that, and how someone's had to have a warning for something, and how upset they are and worried about losing their job.... And I literally do not care.

I don't know these people. Why are you telling me this? I know it's just conversation and his world's very small (he's only got a couple of friends at work, very little family and no other friends outside work and no hobbies except TV and the internet! So most of his talking is directed at me ...) But I really, really don't care about these people.

One of his colleagues from another department who he has worked with just five or six times in three years died the other week. and he wanted to go to the funeral. It was in a town 50 miles away/3 hour round trip. And I said 'I'm not going. You go.' He pulled a face and said 'awww, come on.. Come to support me.' I said 'I didn't know her. I never met her. And YOU only met her five or six times over three years for 8 hours at a time.

He ended up spending 50 quid on flowers and had it delivered to the funeral parlour she was in... I just rolled my eyes and said (again!) 'you barely knew the woman FFS!' I was not affected by her death. I thought it was sad that a 57 year old woman died - only 3 months after the thing that killed her was diagnosed (brain tumour.) But apart from that I felt nothing. Maybe it's because I'm a cold hearted cow. Maybe it's because I didn't know her. (DH barely knew her either!)

I think you've been triggered by this for your own reasons. I don't think there's anything wrong with not caring about people you don't know and there's nothing in my post that says that. It just basically says people have different levels of empathy, not that either is right or wrong.

It's showing an interest in her life.
It's not about the friends. It's about her.
You should try to be a bit interested.

It doesn't do any good but it's not like I can help it? Like a PP said, some people just get more affected by these things than others. I'm not saying I'm devastated by someone breaking something but I'd be momentarily upset to hear and enquire about how they're doing for a few weeks afterwards. By your logic no one would be upset over anything in the news if they couldn't personally do anything about it. Are people just expressing faux grief over tragic news stories then?

Your sister is a gossip. Gossiping isn’t socially acceptable so people like your sister present it as if they are concerned. And they need to manipulate you into also being concerned otherwise it’s obvious they are just gossiping.

This makes so much more sense.

And it means if you don't play the game with them, they can accuse you of being unfeeling rather than having to admit that you've rumbled their ruse.

Virtuous gossips.

People like this used to be avoided or told to stop gossiping about everyone. So they’ve adapted and worse turned it into a virtue signalling event. Look what a caring person they are worrying about everyone. And look what a cold uncaring person you are for not being concerned as well or attempting to shut it down. There’s examples of it on this thread.

It’s not acceptable to break confidences or to gossip but it is if you’re doing it out of concern. We know it’s gossip when we hear someone gleefully exclaims Omg have you heard Julie’s getting divorced. It looks different when someone relays it in a concerned way but it’s still the same.

My friend, of 30 odd years, constantly does this and it bores the absolute crack off me! She meets up with her old neighbour every few weeks or so (who I have never met and by the sound of her and her weird antics, wouldn't want to!)
I then get the nth degree on everything the friend's said and done since they last met up, none of which interests me in the slightest.
She does it about her family members too (and there are a lot, with a lot of drama!) who I do actually know, but again, have very little interest in the minutiae of their lives.
And the same, if I don't show the emotions I'm supposed to apparently show, I get an indignant look and the story gets repeated again, more dramatically, until I am forced to show some interest to make it all stop! I have tried subtle subject changes, but no, it goes on!
I don't know what is wrong with people that feel the need to do this?! My friend has enough drama in her own life without having to go into every little detail of someone elses shit existence!
I did think it was me being a miserable cow, but I really don't think it is!

If the sister is talking about other people then it isn't her life. I wouldn't normally have a problem if it were me on the receiving end, it can be interesting to hear about other people's life experiences that are different from mine, but in this case, if the sister is unloading doom and gloom, I can see how that could be emotionally draining. People have enough things to worry about in their own lives without taking on the problems of people they have no connection with.

As a side note, having read all the comments, I think people are taking this subject too far the other way!
Of course, myself and others are going to be concerned if friends talk about something serious, either about themselves or friends and family. That goes without saying really.
But I personally do not want to be subjected to the other small, boring ins and outs of their lives.
I am an empathetic person, I just don't see the interest in people I neither really know, nor care about, it's nothing to do with being socially uncivil or unaware!

I agree with that statement @asrl78

Haha my retired parents do this, giving me the full blow by blow account of the widowed neighbours love life etc. I’m sure he’d be horrified if he knew how much juicy goss I had on him 😆

My MIL (now deceased) used to do this all the time, it drove us bonkers.
”D’ya remember Breda Kelly?” No, don’t know that name.
”Lives down xxx Road, No. 32” No, I don’t know her.
”Always goes to 10 o’clock mass, sits on the right near the sacristy” No, we don’t go to that mass.
”Little woman, black hair” (grrrr)
”Well, she … blah blah blah”

If it's something that I think my family would find interesting, I'll tell them. Otherwise I wouldn't. Why would they care?