Is this as annoying as I think

[enkelt2]

I'm aware that this is going to be very long and too much info, but here it goes.

My Dad posted a couple of things in family group chat, trying to get my attention. It's about some gadget that only I'd care about.

I only replied today, and he jumped to a conversation. He started to ask me how things are going etc., then:

Dad: [random youtube music]
Me: what is this 😂
Dad: interesting music, it's Eastern European folk music
Me: 😂😂
Dad: it's not your thing, is it!
Me: ok... I think you can start a blog. There must be someone else interested in this.
[Yes I have 0 interest in this stuff but I didn't want to seem too harsh]
Dad: oh no, I'm much more suited to reading others' blogs, not writing them.
Dad: [another youtube music]
Dad: I saw this another day. It's actually very popular stuff. It's X, Y, Z from S era of Japan.
[X, Y, Z, S are sort of technical art/history terms, very pretentious because neither of us are artists/historians]
Me: hmm, good.
Dad: it's an interesting period.
Me: I don't understand.
Dad: There's English subtitle.
Me: OK. I mean I'm not interested. 😂S era was a long time ago, I have 0 interest in it.

Then Dad shifts to the end of the conversation. I actually wanted to point out 'Please don't do this anymore' without being too harsh, as in I don't want unsolicited sharing with commentary. So my mistake was belabouring this point. I continued to say I don't understand the XYZ commentary.

Me: I don't like the commentary, because I don't get it and it's a bit exhausting.
Dad: I'm just sharing, not trying to impose.
Dad: Also, XYZ are not exactly uncommon words. S era may be, as that's more sentimental from my time.
Me: If you like writing about this, seriously consider a blog!
Dad: oh, I wouldn't have any audience that I'd like to address!
Me: Ha, so you're acknowledging that... you're treating me as your audience! Were you doing unsolicited lecturing just now?

and some discussions about my experience of being lectured on, especially by men, ensued.

I also reminded him that he sent a lot of unsolicited, pirated PDFs of novels he read recently in the group. I told him it's annoying. He totally forgot and asked me for context and 'proof.'

i don't know, I just feel exhausted as he has no other friends to share this with. I feel like I was being quite clear that I'm not interested but I dragged on a bit because I don't want this to happen again. I also don't like that he expects me to react to his interest. I know I could have just left it in the first instance, I just wanted to state my feeling once and for all.

After the above, I reinforced my feeling and told him I don't welcome random poetry (the way he wrote about XYZ was really like poetry). He said 'It's not poetry! It's just scattered thought without much context!'. I find this quite annoying, as in, well, then you're acknowledging you don't really care for my input are you? You're not here for a conversation.

Am I unreasonable to feel... just drained from this? I mean I could have let him down a lot less gently, less emoji but I was just being patient, trying to not hurt his feeling.

Please the wise bunch of MN, tell me how I could have prevented this kind of interaction!

I'm drained just reading your post 😆

hahhaha, yea i get it, honestly. Boomer dads really should get a life!!!!

Sorry, I think you sound like an arsehole.

He’s your dad and he’s obviously keen to engage with you.

It’s up to you if you want to be so rude, but I don’t think there’s any need for it.

Easy sorted... At comment
Dad: It's not your thing, is it?!

You say
Me: Sorry, not it's not.

I don’t quite understand the dynamic but it might be less relentless if you engaged a lot less? Don’t open the message for a while, don’t feel you have to reply. Do an occasional smile emoji on it. Or a non open ended comment (eg “nice”).
So in the conversation above instead of

Me: hmm, good.
Dad: it's an interesting period.
Me: I don't understand.

don’t open the conversation up further with “I don’t understand” -

Me: hmm, good.
Dad: it's an interesting period.
Me: <no reply>. Or a thumbs up.

And then just don’t read any more of it.

Well I get that he wants to engage with me. I'm fine with his sharing stuff. It's just I honestly don't know what to say, especially with the artsy stuff. Also I feel this extra burden because I'm the only daughter and I think other family members just ignore him hence the extra weight on me.

I’d find it annoying too but a polite thumbs up/smile react on it acknowledges it without you having to read/watch anything or engage in conversation. And it’s much less annoying than being there in person and having a phone shoved in your face to watch a 12 minute video of something you have no interest in (as my dad does)!

Yeah I did multiple thumbs up prior to this part actually, but thumbs up is actually a lot more reaction than the usual silence, so maybe he got the wrong idea.

That's quite a bit of minutiae you've detailed. Perhaps you and he are not so dissimilar?

You're not wrong that family members can be irritating and frustrating - but when you love people you make the effort to be patient and understanding with them.

I don't mean to be unkind but you are lucky to have a dad who communicates with you. My dad passed away several years ago and I would love the opportunity to have a boringly esoteric text chat with him.

My DM doesn't get out much (have many people to interact with). I just steer her to other topics if hers are extremely tedious, or I just let her have her 10mins about whatever and be done with it.

It's no different to people at work or in social group settings though. Not everyone is reinventing the wheel with conversation, and sometimes it's just nice to let them chat with others.

Yes I'm aware of the hypocrisy of this all, sorry to impose this on all of you! Thanks for sharing, it's the kind of perspective I need.

He’s bored and wants to share and wants attention and wants to be in contact with you.

Just send a smiley or thumbs up as PPs have said.

Allowing this to bother you so much is to partake in a sort of enmeshment. You can just step back nicely.

”Looks good dad” or “cool!” would suffice, after a few hours or whatever.

I think when you say things like

Me: ok... I think you can start a blog. There must be someone else interested in this.

You feel it’s obvious this is a brush off, but he may easily be thinking “interesting, she thinks I have enough material for a blog. Let’s share some more”. Or “blogs, that’s an interesting topic. Why is she so interested in blogs? Let’s discuss”.

I’d try to restrict it to a few longer conversations- and do some verbally rather than over text - and brush the rest off with lack of replying. I get the sense you do want to have a relationship with him, but not this one. Let him chat sometimes, don’t get annoyed by it, don’t feel you have to pretend - you can say “it’s not really my thing but I’m glad you’re enjoying it” or similar.

How old are you OP? I ask because I could have written your post 20 years ago. 20 years later, I now have no parents to listen to and my kids treat me as you're treating your dad . And yes (kindly) you're being an arse

Don't be sorry, you didn't impose, I happily chose to read your post and respond. It's just that, experiencing the ongoing grief of losing mine, I encourage you to enjoy your dad and all his glorious, tedious imperfections!

How on earth people have time for such a weird conversation?
Im with @vodkaredbullgirl - just reading it feels draining.
if you don't want to engage just don’t engage. Why did you ask him what it was? Or later you could have said “not really my cup of tea. Ok, need to go now. See you soon.”

My dad is very old and frail now. I don't know how long he has left. I used to love it when he shared little musical snippets with me and wanted to chat. Now he's too weak. I miss those days and you will too. Be kind to him.

Part of family relationships is talking about stuff you have no interest in - I couldn’t care less about my Neice’s cheerleading competition, my Dad’s opinion on American politics or even half the stuff my own kids talk about, but I make an effort because that’s what you do. Not all the time but even if I wasn’t up for engaging at that moment I wouldn’t have gotten into all the complaining you did, I’d have just politely brushed it off or just replied another time.

If he’s bored and lonely would it kill you to spend a few minutes humouring him? Did your parents not humour you when you were a child and banging on about something boring and unimportant to everyone else but you? Is this how you’d hope to be treated when you’re older and your social circle has shrunk?

I do hate family group chats though, I’d much rather actually speak, on phone or in person.

Can I ask how you'd have liked your kids to treat you if you started this conversation? Actually showing interest in the music your shared? Going deeper on whatever XYZ were? Commenting 'oh cool!' without actually meaning it? Thumbs up without saying anything? Or ignoring him?

I chose to do what I did precisely because I don't want a superficial relationship. I'm not trying to be an arse but just trying to be truthful!

Christ. He’s literally just a dad wanting to chat with his daughter.

You sound more like a whining teenager going through a particularly unpleasant phase than a grown woman.

I mean, I think the dynamic between child-parent is not quite balanced. The whole conversation was actually an hour long via text! I preferred not to phone because last time it ended up being a 2hour heated discussion on politics.

He sounds nice.

I have a close friend who does this to me, except he doesn't want my opinion, he just wants to unload 80 comments in a torrent about his interest (Currently Carl Sagan or someone, he did tell me at length but I can't retain information) and nothing I say will stop it.
You did say in a previous comment that you're one of the few people he has that he can do this with, would he be happy if you just read/watched and acknowledged you'd done so?

Yess I think I just don't like that he unloads stuff without actually wanting my opinion. It doesn't feel exactly like a relationship either, as I seem more like his journal than a person.

I don't know about 'happy', but wouldn't he know that I had actually nothing to say about the content?

Well anyway, next time I'll just do that.

I have an old school friend who is like this. She’s autistic, and when we meet up she will soliloquise for hours on end about medieval Japanese warfare. She just talks and talks, and I smile and drink my coffee and let my mind wander.

I’m one of her only friends - possibly the only one. She knows nothing about me apart from our shared school experiences 40 years ago. She has never expressed any curiosity about my life, or wanted to know what I might be interested in.

I could tell her, every time we met, that I found her monologues tedious and wish she would shut up or make an attempt at a two way conversation. But that would be cruel - she doesn’t know how to do those things, and isn’t really interested in doing them. She needs social contact, but she can only really do it on her terms. I don’t see her often, and I know what to expect when I do.

Sometimes she texts me a flurry of hundreds of random memes about Japanese history, and I just ignore them.

There’s no real need to engage when someone just wants to infodump.