To find this bizarre? Friend and soap

[SplodgePocket]

A friend came around earlier as I had a half day. Before she left, she said she was just popping to the loo. I then heard her call a minute later, “Splodge? There’s no soap”.

I have a dispenser, so I assumed it had run out and called back that there was some on the side of the bath. There was a pause and she called back, “No, not here”. I knew it was there so replied, “Just against the wall, behind the shower screen”. Again, a pause before a bewildered “No…”

I was completely confused now, as I knew very well it was there. I went through to the hall and she was standing in the doorway looking baffled. I went in, looked behind the screen and sure enough, there it was. I handed it to her and said, “Here, see?”

She burst out laughing and said, “Ohhhhh!! It’s shower gel!!” I was a bit confused and replied, “Well yes; soap, shower gel… whatever”. She was smiling at me a bit like I was a child who’d made a comical mistake. She said, “You said soap. This is shower gel. Show-er gel.” With the last bit really slowly, like she wasn’t sure English was my first language.

I was really taken aback. Who is this bizarrely literal? Surely it’s all pretty much the same thing? I thought maybe she was looking for a bar of soap and this was what had confused her somehow, but surely when you couldn’t see it you’d think “it must be the stuff in the bottle”? And even if you didn’t, wouldn’t you just have used the shower gel anyway?

I’ve never noticed her take things so literally before. Is it me or is this just really odd?!

Do you have a dispenser by the sink too and it had run out?
I would also be confused about washing my hands with shower gel. And no soap by the sink

do people still use 'bar soap'? Seems very victorian...

?!

Yes, lots of people still use bar soap. I can’t stand liquid soap and I hate the plastic waste. Use bar soap in the shower, too, no shower gel. When I make my friends play hunt the soap it’s very easily found, have to make do with Victorian parlour games instead.

Sorry just seen you do have a dispenser by the sink but it was empty.
In that case I would just say use the shower gel.

Yes, for the 1000th time she had a dispenser of hand soap by the sink which had unexpectedly run out

I love a bar of soap! I do a TK maxx raid every now and then and stock up on beautifully scented soaps which I love using.

I have liquid by the sink in the kitchen though becasue I don't really want a bar of soap knocking around the kitchen sink

I’m surprised that the friend didn’t just figure it out. OP ran out of soap and told friend there was some in another location. I mean, if this was me, I would initially look for a bottle of liquid soap, but it would take a couple of seconds to make the leap to shower gel. Small breakdown in communication leads to one person being extremely patronising to another for no good reason. Weird.

Oh and if I put shower gel in the liquid soap dispenser, guess what? It would be completely undetectable and would do the same job.

I much prefer a bar of soap. Firstly there's no plastic waste, secondly I feel so much cleaner if I use soap.

But the reason she’s saying it over and over is those are the posts she’s focussed on, rather than taking on board the hundreds of others quite rightly pointing out that most people would not assume she meant for them to use her shower gel without explicitly stating so (even though yes it’s basically the same as soap blah blah).

Yes, dove bar does a very good job. I buy it to save on plastic packaging (environment).

It’s not immediately intuitive to people when you ask for soap and are pointed towards ‘some stuff in a bottle’ or ‘somewhere behind the screen.’.

Your friend would have been looking for a bar or soap or a Cussons hand wash, not your Radox!

Exactly, she is clearly incapable of listening to or even considering others opinions as it is damaging to her ego when she thought she was so right

I think she is just one of these people who always thinks she’s right even when she is wrong

I never said it was a moral failing - just that it's one of those things that most people would really not want to run out of; if the alternative is that you have to grapple around and hold and open a shower gel bottle with poo-germy fingers.

They cost a pound or less, don't take up much room in your cupboard and keep for months and months - unless you really are on your uppers, why wouldn't you always keep one or two in spare?

So? I never said that she wasn't doing that, I was simply pointing something out to another user. Why are you trying to argue with me?

Yes! It's cheaper, better for the environment and feels much cleaner than shower gel/liquid "soap" (most of which aren't actually soap at all).
I do have a smol liquid dispenser in the kitchen though.

Why are you so confused by the idea that sometimes people aren't completely organised and therefore don't always have supplies in? Sometimes things get overlooked. It's hardly an unusual situation.

I personally don’t feel like it does tho.

Why was there no dispenser next to the sink?

Kidding.

This thread is hilarious!

op I think I’m one of the few that wouldn’t have even asked you and just used whatever. I’ve been to friends’ houses before and used whatever I can find - shampoo, shower gel. It’s all soap!

This is why everyone thinks you're being arrogant, OP:

Me: There was only one bottle there, so even if she’d wondered why I said soap instead of shower gel, it couldn’t have been anything else.

If there was only a bottle of shower gel there, and no soap, there is another possibility: the possibility that you were mistaken. The fact that you think your friend could and should not have conceived that you might be mistaken shows the problem.

It's worse than that. You're suggesting that your friend should think that a thing becoming another, totally different, kind of thing is a stronger possibility than you being mistaken.

What if your friend had looked behind the curtain and seen a bottle of Pepsi? Even if she'd wondered why you said soap instead of Pepsi, should she have washed her hands with it?

That's why we put cheap bubble bath in the hand wash bottles. 🙂

Who would go into someone's shower area for shower gell to wash their hands? Very bizarre.
Isn't it easier for yourself and own family to have some soap or hand-wash on the sink?
Use shower gell if you want.. but pour into a dispenser for side of sink..
I'd feel very intrusive going into someone else's shower / bath area .

People still posting this misunderstanding have to be taking the piss now.

If I'd asked you where the soap was, I'd be expecting soap tbh, not shower gel and I really hope no-one uses my shower gel to wash their hands. They may be "molecularly" the same thing, but the difference between them in my house is about £29.

While of course they are the same products I wouldn't think to have to go into the shower to wash my hands. Surely you have some on the sink ?

And another!