talkin bout things that nobody cares

what are the topics that make you personally want to leave the room at gatherings? either due to banality, overexposure to the topic, or any other disdain you feel.

for me it's:

-Harry Potter (though thankfully that's died down due to JKR heel turn)
-people awkwardly reciting something funny they saw on tv as opposed to just finding a stream of it and sending it to me
-awards ceremonies

thew weird dream you had the other night

I'm a big defender of people telling their dream stories (also trip stories) - I find them interesting!

These days I try to allow space for people to talk about anything they're interested in, and just enjoy the fact that it makes them happy even if the topic is deadly dull to me. However, this totally does not work all the time - it's hard to give up being a big ol' snobby bastard, y'know? My massive turn-off topics are sports and directions, I will zone out, I'm sorry.

podcasts

i mean it's fine, god knows i can only talk about horror movies all day long, often in front of people who hate horror movies. but podcasts have like a twinned alienating effect on me: their format is so often "conversations in which i cannot participate," and conversations about podcasts are also conversations in which i cannot participate

I’m interested in hearing about podcasts, but there’s a disconnect for sure— there is no point in my life that a podcast is suitable aural accompaniment for me, aside from “long drives” (I prefer music) or “cleaning house” (I prefer silence). I haven’t listened to any of them, not even the famous ones

I can’t bear mortgage discussions. I will leave a party. I will ask you to pull over and I’ll walk, instead

IRL, people telling me how i have to watch this show or that show. every person i know has one or two shows they want me to watch, and report back with my thoughts. my brain glazes over as i promise them i'll get around to it eventually.

Tell me about the premise of some show, or your feelings and thoughts about some movie, but please god don't recap the entire plot of some tv show or movie. Even if I'm not going to see it, there is nothing more boring in the entire world.

one of my friends does that and dear god I love him but all I can muster up is "uh huh. oh cool."

Yeah I have a friend who just cannot stop doing this, and has been doing so for many years.

Also I genuinely wish I could be more interested in interior decorating and furniture, which of course has become a prime discussion topic for friends in their 40s & 30s. I'm just thankful my wife has good taste.

what I don't like are friends who actually get mad that you didn't watch something they recommended. like, I like sharing experiences with friends, and sure, a ton of times I've taken a friend's recommendation and it's been rewarding. so I'm not like going to avoid checking something out due to some absurd form of rebellion.

but sometimes they recommend stuff in genres I know I don't like, or I give it a spin and think "wow I fuckin' hate this", and the other person will act aggrieved, and my reaction is generally "this is not a homework assignment, I am not obligated to do this any more than you are to listen to Bathtub Shitter because I told you they were a cool band"

Unsolicited sexual oversharing. It was embarrassing when we were teenagers, it’s even worse now.

IRL, people telling me how i have to watch this show or that show. every person i know has one or two shows they want me to watch, and report back with my thoughts. my brain glazes over as i promise them i'll get around to it eventually.

The TV show thing is kinda touching... people want to talk about their experiences of art and media but also it's just logistically hard to align on watching the same things in a way where you can have a real conversation. TV probably seems like the best hope.

irl discussions about politics, even if I agree with the people involved in the discussion. I remember specifically during the 2016 election being at a pool party and other people in the pool were discussing Trump. My solution was just to submerge myself underwater repeatedly and practice holding my breath until the topic of conversation changed.

I tend to dislike discussions of home renovation, just because my home is so badly in need of repairs and most of my attempts at renovation have been horrible failures. Like, I managed to fuck up changing my house numbers last year, but my friends will regale me with stories of installing a second sump-pump or whatever.

- bitcoin
- AI/ChatGPT
- fantasy football

People who get on the jag of “you should stop renting an apartment and BUY a house… you could rent it out, you could use it half the year, you could flip it, it’s a great investment, renovate it, it’s easy money…”

Sure, Jan. Sounds like fun.

i agree with the people who don't like having stuff pushed on them - sorry i've got a wishlist already and life is finite - or having entire chunks of story recounted to them

not sure there's many actual subjects i find impossibly boring - as opposed to toxic - depending on the enthusiasm and brevity of the person talking

discussing the reasons in which particular claims republicans have made are, actually, ...incorrect

because usually factual accuracy has nothing to do with why those talking points are being deployed in the first place. so why entertain it

certainly a beautiful, flowing mineral-rich resource for talking heads on TV to breathlessly discuss for the sake of filling screen time with empty brain calories, or as the kids know it: "content"

astrology. was at a party recently where discussion of peoples signs began and literally ran out of the room.

thinking about this and very often its less the topic and its more the way the talker dumps the spiel at me

now, i will grant that this is very often more likely _given_ a certain topic eg bitcoin but nonetheless for me its a reasonable distinction ti draw, as im interested in most things if the person talking to me is interesting when telling me about them

I agree that it’s the singer not the song

xp agree, like with discussions of oooh vibes based geography for example

any conspiracy theories, no matter how mild, I will stick an imaginary fork in your eye and set fire to your car

I hardly ever gather with many people so actually listen in to whatever ppl are talking as a novelty!

thinking about this and very often its less the topic and its more the way the talker dumps the spiel at me

Agreed. I was in a cigar bar a couple of months ago and some dude a couple of tables away was broadcasting his (painfully obvious) opinions on music to his friends and the rest of us. He would not shut up. It took all I had not to get up and put my cigar out in his eye.