The think that if you are a patient in hospital, that it is the height of rudeness and intrusiveness to attampt to chit chat with your roommates

[user1471516498]

I have a long standing medical condition that means I have to spend quite a bit of time in hospital. Privacy on NHS wards is pretty minimal, so I have always thought that it was polite to keep your curtains closed if possible, and if they have to be open, then you put headphones in, avoid eye contact and generally avoid inflicting yourself on others. And certainly you don't make small talk with complete strangers.
I am not being unfriendly here, I am just treating other people how I would want to be treated. The last thing I want when I am feeling ill is to have to talk to people who I have nothing in common with other than being in the same room.
In all of my many hospital stays, I have never been rude enough to intrude on others, but the two women in my bay are just being insufferable! Is it just me, or is this just downright rude?

I don't think it is the height of rudeness but if you don't want to talk that is your choice but don't call other people rude for being friendly. I'm guessing the others are thinking you are the rude one

Actually I chat with colleagues all day at work and have lots of friends!

But I find the idea of being at the mercy of ill health in a strange and uncontrollable environment, horrifying. So the smaller and quieter I can stay, the easier and faster the process will end.

I am not an anxious person as a rule but being in hospital changes me into a different woman. I just curl up into a ball and try to disappear.

I was in for four days and definitely was not feeling communicative! I just felt awful and had no interest in other people's ailments. The headphones went on and stayed on regardless of whether I was watching something on my iPad or just reading and the curtains were closed as much as possible. I really didn't care if I was regarded as anti-social.

I'm sure you communicate your feelings with utter clarity so I doubt people will inconvenience you for long with pesky human contact.

YABU. You are particularly unfriendly, by the sounds of it. It's fine not to want to speak to people because you are ill or just introverted. Creating some reason to frame it as rude for people to just pass the time of day with others on the ward is just unpleasant. This is a you thing.

You are the odd one out, my husband is a surgeon and reassuing confirmed many find comfort in talking to each other. Not everyone is in agony. The curtains aren't there for you to hide away behind, staff will want them open which I'm sure with your expansive stays you would know and understand what they are there for.

Yabu
Why would you assume no one wants to talk on a hospital ward. If you don't want to talk that's absolutely fine,.keep your headphones in, curtain closed. If they talk to you keep answers short and they will soon give up. Of course it's not rude though to talk to other people 🤣... And I consider myself an introvert.

I agree about noise nuisance. After having DS2 I was shocked that everyone had a TV above their bed, could play it whenever they pleased, spoke at the top of their voices etc. But that’s not the same as people wanting to share a convo with you.

Don't be silly OP! It's not 'the height of rudeness' to speak to people in hospital ffs! I'm as introvert and unsociable as they come, but I wouldn't feel offended if someone spoke to me from a hospital bed! Jesus, what's the world coming to when you're offended at small talk!

Obviously you don't need to chat back, and can say so.,,you do you and all that! But it's really not difficult to understand that we are all different, and that 'small talk' isn't actually 'the height of rudeness' 🤦‍♀️

OK, I understand that this is your coping strategy. But many people who are scared and anxious find it comforting to talk to people around them. You should try it! It makes the time go faster and who knows, you might actually meet lovely people who will make you feel better while in hospital.

I'm in hospital a lot - probably five months in total last year. I've been on chatty wardswhich were good, silent wards which were also goodm and I always have a tablet with headphones, although mostly I just read.

Worst experience - I was talking with my consultant and a pharmacist about changing my medication and was asked about family medical history, which I don't know about because I'm adopted.

Once they'd left, the extremely oversharing woman in the next bed who had been listening to everything started questioning me all about my experience of being adopted. I was exhausted (there was a screamer in the same ward), in pain, and it was awful. I was almost glad to catch c.diff because I got a room to myself.

I think that's weird. I'll happily chat to anyone. I had surgery a couple of years back and was in hospital for a few days. The ward had 4 bed, and there were a couple of changes of occupants in them, but I had great craic chatting to them all! Really helped pass the time!

Rude? No. Odd mindset

Surely the problem with drawing the curtains around your bed is that, if you happen to be in the middle bed, it means that the people on either side of you now ALSO have to have at least one of their curtains closed potentially blocking their view out of the ward (apart from the end of their bed)?

May be okay if you were the last bed next to the window, but I can see why people wouldn't like this, and I say that as someone who likes privacy and whose idea of hell is sharing a ward.

Also, I've never been on a ward where this was even permitted. Nurses like to be able to see their patients from the nurse station.

It's easy to signify you don't want to chat.

Headphones on, book up.

Or pretend to sleep.
Or be on your laptop/phone.

@arcticpandas@arcticpandas I take on board what you say.

I honestly hadn't imagined that so many people would want to socialise in such a situation.

I even had a private NHS room after my difficult birth delivery when I was kept in for a week so didn't stay in a ward then so have no experience of what other people are describing.

I think you should be mindful that other patients might be in pain or just feeling very low and uncommunicative, but no, I don't think it's "the height of rudeness" to make a passing friendly remark to someone in the next bed (for example) or to let that develop into a conversation if it happens naturally.

It’s just a case of ‘reading the room’. I would chat if in a room with others, but I would note someone’s body language. If they were reading, not engaging and no eye contact, I would assume that person doesn’t want to be sociable, and just not engage with them unless they spoke to me first. You can’t accuse others of being rude just because they approach things differently to you. I can’t imagine anyone would be forcing their chat on you if you’ve got your curtains round the bed, or have head phones on.

Each to their own. I spent 3 months in hospital. Sometimes I was chatty, sometimes I just wanted to escape into my headphones. There were many times though when knowing people on my ward was mutually helpful. Sometimes to call for assistance or to help get things for those less mobile, for example.

There are no rules - unspoken or otherwise - on this. On my ward, the sister doesn't like the curtains closed during the day unless someone is dressing/undressing, receiving personal care, having a consultation, or dying. It is a hospital, people need to be seen to be observed. At night we can creep around and peek behind the curtains to make sure people are sleeping and not dead, but during the day the curtains are kept open.

I was in hospital for an extended stay after suffering from sepsis. The nurses said they could “feel the love” in our little 4 person bay as we all talked, supported, laughed, cried and just helped each other through our respective recoveries over the days and weeks that followed. We are all still firm friends now and I strongly believe the support we received from each other helped us all survive. I was told later on that we were all put in that bay together as we were the sickest patients on the ward and it was easiest for the nurses to keep an eye on us simultaneously. I don’t think they envisaged the power of friendship would be so healing.

Of course it's not rude. The whole premise of the comedy series "Only When I Laugh" was that people in hospital talk to each other. Your arbitrary rules are not the norm, I'm afraid.

I hope you feel better soon.

Oh goodness, I couldn't feel more differently! I was in an acute respiratory ward for ten days in September last year - it was my first stay in hospital other than giving birth - I was quite ill and couldn't get out of bed much (two lung drains in, eg) but I made such lovely friends on that ward - some went, others came, some like me stayed and we formed a lovely group despite our differences in age, background, diagnosis etc. And yes, we all helped each other with various things like filling in the meal requests, calling nurses if needed, depending on which of us was most mobile/fit at the time.

I took my first unaided walk (stagger) to the toilet one night after a week of commodes, pushing my IV drip and dragging my heavy lung drain receptacle with me, and everyone cheered 😀. We made a good joke out of me looking like Wee Willie Winkie flitting through the town lighting the lanterns.

That time would have been immeasurably worse for me without the camaraderie of the others going through similar unpleasant things. My 'best friend' in there was 85, she was so funny and witty despite going through awful things, and I still wonder if she managed to get home in the end.

I had one person assigned to the bed beside me for a while and she made it politely clear she wasn't up for chatting, which was fine, we're all different.

Calling it "the height of rudeness" is pretty weird to be honest. If you don't want to chat, that's fine, but other people aren't rude for trying to talk to you. Maybe they think you're rude for not talking to them. "certainly you don't make small talk with complete strangers" - but why not?

YABVU.

That sort of behaviour, imo, is the height of rudeness.