Others Conversing...

[SeaCzar]

OK, I am going to try not to make this a rant, but....

Not that this is news, but does anyone else just want to scream, "What, in the depths of your ignorance, are you chuntering on about now?" when exposed to the mindless and constant chatter of (almost all) others? In the office, restaurants, the mall, bars, EVERYWHERE, people jabber on endlessly about nothing. Its all so much twaddle. When I have something to say, its almost always either intelligent or pertinate to a situation. "I talk, therefore, I am" seems to the raison d'etre for almost everyone. I am excellent at filtering this out, but, every now and then, when the filter is off, I come back to the same thought, "seriously dude/broad/both, STFU".

Am I all alone on this?

[AgentofGaming]

So what are they talking about? Why were you paying attention? Why did it become more than background noise?

Although yes I have this too. Boisterous loud people tend to override my filters, their meaningless arguing and bickering on the cell phone/to their companions make it difficult for me to concentrate. When I'm stuck on the same bus with them it annoys me to no end.

The only thing worse is when someone eats open-mouthed or makes nasty snot sniffing noises behind me in lecture. In those cases my thoughts go beyond saying shut up and I actually want to punch them in the face. (Although my thoughts seldom translate into action so I have yet to become violent)

[dandylion]

Don't forget that most humans are social creatures (unlike introverted people like us), so they enjoy socializing with other people because it's entertaining to them. It's not really fair to judge people when you only overhear snippets of their conversation. Then again, don't expect to hear any intellectual debates going on at restaurants, malls, bars, and most other places.

I like cracking stupid, lame jokes every so often myself. Does that make me a mindless broad?

[AgentofGaming]

Sometimes they talk at volumes/with tones as if they want everyone to hear. That's when it gets a bit inconsiderate.

[PortInStorm]

Yep, I agree with you Sea. And twaddle... what a great word!

And not just IRL- if I switch one more channel and hear about someone paying 5,000 dollars for a handbag and half an hour on how to take care of them, the recent style, who's carrying the same one, how much you love it etc etc, I'll have to clean vomit off the screen.

[SeaCzar]

So what are they talking about? Why were you paying attention? Why did it become more than background noise?

Although yes I have this too. Boisterous loud people tend to override my filters, their meaningless arguing and bickering on the cell phone/to their companions make it difficult for me to concentrate. When I'm stuck on the same bus with them it annoys me to no end.

The only thing worse is when someone eats open-mouthed or makes nasty snot sniffing noises behind me in lecture. In those cases my thoughts go beyond saying shut up and I actually want to punch them in the face. (Although my thoughts seldom translate into action so I have yet to become violent)


I was at a bookstore in the check-out line, and two girls in front of me were having a conversation the went along these lines: "And then I was like....and the he went......and then I went....and then he was like". Its not just women. Last month, at the mall (which I hate to beging with), two guys (one with an FCUK hat on): "Like totally dude....but dude...way to cool dude...". Someone shoot me. Shoot me NOW!!!





SeaCzar added to this post, 2 minutes and 15 seconds later...

Don't forget that most humans are social creatures (unlike introverted people like us), so they enjoy socializing with other people because it's entertaining to them. It's not really fair to judge people when you only overhear snippets of their conversation. Then again, don't expect to hear any intellectual debates going on at restaurants, malls, bars, and most other places.

I like cracking stupid, lame jokes every so often myself. Does that make me a mindless broad?

I use lame (usually Pythonesque) jokes. Further, I am sure you are not the mindless broad (I know, you shouldn't call chicks broads-just kidding).

[meaniehaha]

Well I guess I never will understand social beings because I for sure can't understand, and have no desire to understand why they can go on for hours with mindless chatter.

Small talk is something I don't do well. I can fake it briefly, like 5 mins. worth, but after that it becomes an exercise in futility.

I use language for receiving or imparting knowledge or the transfer of information necessary for getting a job done.
On Occasion, I do let go with some very dry humor.

[vaguely dissatisfied]

Twaddle indeed.............

I go back and forth on this one. On the one hand, I have to reach deep into my patience reserves to be able to deal in a civilized way with almost anything I consider small talk. On the other hand, I consider myself to be a pompous ass.

I can't decide if it's wrong for people to engage in twaddle all day long or if I am being much too intolerant and self-serving.

Twaddle is fun to say.............

[AgentofGaming]

I was at a bookstore in the check-out line, and two girls in front of me were having a conversation the went along these lines: "And then I was like....and the he went......and then I went....and then he was like". Its not just women. Last month, at the mall (which I hate to beging with), two guys (one with an FCUK hat on): "Like totally dude....but dude...way to cool dude...". Someone shoot me. Shoot me NOW!!!
Hmm... intense usage of the following words "like", "dude", "then" and overusage of adjectives. They must have been very descriptive. :thumbsup:
I guess when you're trapped in line there's not much chance of escape. Good thing I'm not the one making purchases most of the time.
I'd typically... avoid the mall and if I had to go I'd just walk away from those people.

Last resort: get earplugs/music/etc

[INTJoe]

pertinate

Other than your spelling of "pertinent", I agree with everything you say. Most stuff people talk about is of zero importance.

Then, what IS important...personal finance, science, etc...nobody wants to hear me talk about it. It's "Boring!" It's no wonder I turn more and more "I" with each year.

They'd rather debate about what the coolest ringtone is.

[deepFlow]

One situation in which I find it especially exhausting in my own life (in a psychological sense) is when at work (which is a cubicle environment). I'm trying to get some serious concentration-requiring work done, and some days, it's like all day long there's all this voluminous chatty blather going on.

That's when I have to resort to the wrap-around-ear earphones and drown myself in musics. Unfortunately, while I am indeed a lover of the musics, it can be oppressive when you feel like you have to wrap yourself up in it, for great lengths of time, even when you're not really in the mood...

...Hell, sometimes it not just small-chat that drives me crazy, but any kind of spoken words at all. I often thirst for some good non-human-infested quiet. :-)

[rwyatt365]

Sea, like dude...I with you, man...it's like...wow...dude!

Sorry, I had to clean off my keyboard after that...

What I find utterly amazing is how many words it takes for people to impart information to one another. I (am often forced to) listen to my wife and son talk about "things". They will prattle on for hours and hours saying, essentially, the same things over and over and over. Sometimes I think I might start bleeding from my ears having to listen to their twaddle (I love that word!).

As someone else pointed out, this is the norm - we are the exception. People blathering on and on, in person and on cell phones, the noise is deafening. And there is little that we can do about it, except escape from it in some way.

[Haphazard]

My mother had to say something to me and my father yesterday.

It took her about twenty minutes to tell us what she could have said in eight words:

"My job is moving me around next year."

And this made me and my father very upset to have to listen so long. Not that we don't like her, but that's just ridiculous. How can people stand to hear people fritter away like that?

Maybe INTJ is code for ADD.

[Zilal]

I don't mind most ambient chatter, but I get extremely irritated with people who keep talking at me personally without saying much. It's one of the few ways to irritate me, in fact.

[eMachine]

When I was about 17, I had a job as a housekeeper at a ski/golf establishment cleaning condos and townhouses. My 'team' of women would spend 30-60 minutes in each unit and an hour or two during 'deep-cleaning'. The other women would always turn soap operas on and giggle and gossip the entire time, the way I like to describe it as that I felt like I was in an 'aviary'. I didn't keep that job for more than 2 months.

My husband is very much a talker. One thing that he is always doing that annoys me to no end is constantly giving examples and analogies, all of which I can understand, and yet he continues one after another. After the first 2 or 3 I end up telling him "Yes, I understand, please continue", then 2 or 3 more "Okay, I got it, what point are you getting at?", then 2 or 3 more "Is it really that complicated or do you just think I'm that stupid?"... and it's generally an argument after that.

And now he wonders why I don't seem to be listening to him half the time... :thinking:

[vkut79]

Well I guess I never will understand social beings because I for sure can't understand, and have no desire to understand why they can go on for hours with mindless chatter.

Small talk is something I don't do well. I can fake it briefly, like 5 mins. worth, but after that it becomes an exercise in futility.

I use language for receiving or imparting knowledge or the transfer of information necessary for getting a job done.
On Occasion, I do let go with some very dry humor.

Yeah same, small talk for me gets increasingly harder the longer it lasts, although its fine if its brief. It also varies a little bit with my mood.





vkut79 added to this post, 2 minutes and 58 seconds later...

Other than your spelling of "pertinent", I agree with everything you say. Most stuff people talk about is of zero importance.

Then, what IS important...personal finance, science, etc...nobody wants to hear me talk about it. It's "Boring!" It's no wonder I turn more and more "I" with each year.

They'd rather debate about what the coolest ringtone is.

This is so true... I honestly feel sometimes that I would actually socialize a great deal more, even perhaps be like an E, if people were more interested in talking about serious intellectual topics rather than shallow, dull topics. Unfortunately our society does not run that way....

[Xeraii]

I know exactly what you're talking about SeaCzar.

And yes, it seems to be the majority of the population that spews this neverending drivel that serves only to make me imagine grabbing them by the head and repeatedly smashing their face into a desk/wall. :scared:

Small talk is my bane, and unless I feel the extreme need to partake in it, I usually end up standing in the background watching what's going on. When I do "engage" in small talk, it won't last for more than 5 minutes before I crack a joke or swiftly move conversation in a more interesting direction - frequently resulting in the conversation being rejected and ending, since other people apparently cannot bring themselves to deviate from their lovely social games and rituals. :suspicious:

[Richard0612]

Small talk is something I don't do well. I can fake it briefly, like 5 mins. worth, but after that it becomes an exercise in futility.

I'm very much the same. I can talk for a few minutes about mindless topics, but then I reach overload point and have to make a quick getaway or push the conversation into more interesting realms [e.g. philosophy, psychology, temporal physics, etc.]. This is exactly the reason that I refuse to go to parties, 98% of conversation is intellectually-deprived twaddle [could we make that the INTJ 'signature word'?], and I can't keep my 'happy social' mode active for more than 5 minutes, let alone 2-3 hours!