Unpleasant when people talk to me instead of with me

[Deleted member 42984]

Good for you! :-) Guess we are all different. I don't like advice, you do. I go to NA meetings once in a while and at those meetings, direct advice is not allowed, you only share for yourself, to yourself, about yourself. I like that, suits me well :-) But I'm aware that you can't completely avoid people giving advice, people do that all the time. I just don't like it lol

 

[joeylittle]

I don't like advice, you do.

It’s the internet, a good place to practice ignoring or moving past things that cause irritation. I practice that all of the time, esp. here. It’s one of the ways I can track how irritable I am.

I find that when I’m stressed, I’ve got very little patience for other people’s yammer - and instead of being able to make a choice to disengage or tolerate neutrally, I find myself getting irritated, annoyed, and my responses can get pretty sharp.

So for me, it’s less of an ‘all the time’ thing, more of a barometer on my mental health.

Big chunks of my job require me to listen, a lot. I used to manage it by getting down on myself when I found my thoughts drifting towards being annoyed w/whoever I was listening to.

But eventually I made the connection with irritability as something connected to symptoms. Now, I usually can identify whether I’m just not at my best, or whether the other person is genuinely being an ass and anyone would find them annoying.

Helps me manage the nasty feeling of irritation.

 

[321marshall]

I completely understand what this post is about. I have an individual at work who talks at me. A real Mr. know it all. I am religious, but I don't go around constantly thinking that I understand everything that is going on with someone. I don't pretend to know the solution to everything. When people blabber on and on when my mind is going a million miles a minute I feel like throat punching that person. I usually end up saying excuse me, but I have somewhere that I need to be. The social awkwardness that comes with PTSD.

 

[Lionheart]

I hate it when people blabber on endlessly....

So may I ask you?..., what is wrong with saying, "Can we please change the subject and talk about something else instead?"...when annoyed?

It is assertive, get's the point across, requires no explanation, and may lead to more interesting topics of conversation, maybe even something you do like talking about.

I hope you don't mind the suggestion, it's just a thought.

 

[barefoot]

Yes, listening to people yammer on about subjects I have zero interest in can be irritating and tedious. That said, if I’ve let someone yammer on at me for ages about something, I think I am partly responsible for the situation, because I’ve not done anything to stop them from dominating the conversation. No one can yammer on if someone isn’t letting them yammer on to them, I guess?

I don’t find it triggering - for me it’s just a disconnect in that the topic of conversation at that time is interesting to them and not to me. If someone is talking at me rather than to me - they’re just broadcasting at me, they’re not interested in anything I might say, they’re not making it easy for me to get a word in, they’re not listening when I do speak etc - that’s more of an issue for me as it would feel like they’re not valuing my input, they’re not interested in hearing me etc. I’m not sure that’s what you’re talking about though - I think it’s more that you’re saying you get annoyed when people talk to you at length about things you’re not interested in? Is that right?

We’re not all interested in the same things, of course, so I’m sure there are also times when I‘ve talked to people about something and I’ve been on a roll with it and they maybe haven’t been that interested. I think I’m pretty good at reading people and noticing if people are glazing over or switching off or looking like they want to wrap the conversation up etc. But if people - especially if I don’t know them very well - are doing a good job of feigning interest, it can be harder to pick up on that.

Change the topic of conversation or wrap up the conversation...can easily do either of those things without being rude or mean. I personally wouldn’t ever say something as blunt as “can we change the subject because I’m not interested in this?” For me, that feels uneccessarily blunt and rude (just my personal view) I. These sorts of situations, I would change the conversation without specifically saying so...just steer the chat to something else. And, if they still talk at me and don’t “allow” me to talk about something else, I’d wrap the conversation up because it’s not really a two way thing and I want my intereactions with people to be a two way thing.

 

[Gs172003]

My sister is like this. You can't even get off the phone with her short of hanging up on her. She dominates the conversation and only ends it when she wants to no matter how many times you say "I have to go". That said, it's irritating but not harmful. She can't hurt me with it. I can choose to ignore her calls. I can choose to tell anybody I don't feel like talking to that I'm sorry but I have "insert blank here" to do and I have to go.

 

[Deleted member 42984]

Thanks for sharing, all of you. It helps me acknowledge that my irritation is perfectly valid. How to handle it then? Well, I'm with you, @barefoot, I wouldn't say directly that I'm not interested in this, I would try to steer the conversation back to a subject we are both interested in, or, if don't succeed with that, simply leave the conversation. I did that yesterday. Funny thing happened though, I met ANOTHER guy later on who complains endlessly without ever listening, and I was like, f*ck, two in a day, this is too much. But once again, I left the conversation, I just said I have to go home now. I guess there are lessons to be learned here for me.