How to cope with nosey people and intrusive questions

[Irish24]

Just a rant. It baffles me how much people need to know about others lives? You may wonder or think yourself but I just always know not to ask not directly anyway. Especially the ‘when are you having children?’ Such a personal question and people think you automatically have children once you get married. Are people not educated or something that they think it’s supposed to happen right away? What do they think happens that a baby arrives in a stork once you get married? For some people, they may struggle to have children or don’t want children. Ultimately, it isn’t anyone’s business. Then once you pregnant it’s the constant questions and stupid comments people make. Should you be doing this and that? Pregnancy isn’t a disability. I don’t know if people think pregnant women just lie in bed the whole nine months and ring a bell for their partner/husband to demand things. What is the deal with this? I just don’t get nosey people lol

How?

That she claimed you were jealous. OF WHAT?! 😆 She made no sense.

Of her friendship with this other girl. Sorry I should have made that clear. Jealousy wasn’t the issue lol it was the fact my personal business was discussed with someone I hardly knew and when i wasn’t there

So tempting to ask them the same question

I, like a PP, get it with my disabilities. Always get asked what happened.

I agree with this.

So many recent threads on here about disliking people, avoiding interaction, preferring to shut yourself away, wanting to wfh, ltb, go no contact with the family and drop the friends, and take offence at everything. Thousands of years of evolution and here we are wanting nothing more than to live like hermits. Humans are social creatures, no man is an island, no 'individual' exists outside of a society.

It's very depressing.

I get this but we should also learn to respect people’s privacy and boundaries also. I don’t mind people asking questions out of kindness, curiosity but it’s when my business is spread around just for gossip and nosiness is not on.

Oh sorry, that might have been me being a bit dense. Yeah, it's an obvious deflection. I hate it when other people presume to know what I actually think or feel despite anything I might say and I will argue it till I'm blue in the face.

I can always remember the pregnancy questions.
I am mid 50’s and can remember it going on until I hit 50.

Doctor: is there any chance you could be pregnant?
Nosey arse: are you thinking of having children then?

Answer: not unless sperm can get through a sash window, no.

I stole this from the late comedian Victoria Wood and if anyone did ever recognise it they’d laugh. The rest would just look at me like I was not well.

I do think it’s just small talk, chit chat or excitement for you. If it’s bitchy and the people are unkind just ignore them I would walk away. I would also question why you actually talk to people like this.

Just say “you’re brave”
it ambiguous, confusing and generally interpreted as a passage aggressive insult rather than a compliment.

or “at least your honest”
or “I don’t know”
or “I can’t have them”

You can’t help but not talk to some of these people as they were work colleagues. I think this is even worse to ask a work colleague who you don’t know particularly well on a personal level so you don’t know what someone is going through. I’ve just either ignored or changed the subject.
i thought it was more older people that asked but seems like women in particular like to ask this question. It just baffles
me as it seems people either lack common sense/courtesy or either don’t know what else to talk to you about

"When are you planning on having children?"

"Oh, that's a good question. When were you next thinking about having unprotected sex?"

LOL. There are literally hundreds of topics of conversation to talk about that dont involve personal, private and intrusive questions though. Anyone with the bare minimum of social skills can see that.

Its not like if you dont ask about someone's personal finances, disabilities, or reproductive choices that leaves literally nothing left to talk about- thats just ridiculous!

It's really not hard to have sociable and appropriate conversations on a daily basis that dont involve grilling someone for personal details. I manage to do it every single day, its really not difficult at all.

Exactly lol not every conversation you have is about intimate personal details or grilling people about personal private matters. If someone wants to open up to me about it then that’s fine. I’m hear to listen. Otherwise it isn’t my business so therefore I don’t ask questions