For me it’s detailed describtions about people’s dreams.
Not only doesn’t your story make any sense, but you’re also telling me about something that didn’t even happen. It’s kind of like telling about an event, and then ending the story by saying you just made it all up, except with dreams you begin by telling it’s all made up. I’m already not interested before you even started.
Their health. I’ve reached the age where most of my friends have something to say about their health. It becomes a sort of one-upmanship game, where everyone has to top the person who spoke last with their afflictions. What is this, the misery olympics?
Gotta get those W’s wherever you can I guess
Medical topics become more and more important as we age. You never know when you might learn something helpful. “That happens to you too? And did the fix work?”
Hell, you might learn about something that doesn’t affect you, but you can pass it on. For example; Dad didn’t have hairy legsm but a guy in bootcamp showed him how to put on socks if you do. :)
One upmanship is boorish not matter the topic.
ive recently gotten really into diet and fitness and i admittedly talk about my health stuff alot but not negative stuff. i just spew new stuff i read about or watched/actually applied to my life.
“wow i sleep all day. gee i just woke up and its 4pm i guess i definitely have a disorder or smth, therefore its out of my control so im not gonna do anything about it except leverage it for pity”
a lot of my friends and peers do this shit. like im the weird one for eating like i do, yet im shredded and sleeping ok while yall out here struggling and tired.
I don’t really mind, but don’t need the intimate details. People talking about it is better than having it be secret and shameful, and is something going on in the person’s life, but say what you need to and move on!
Weed/drugs. You do you, but shut the fuck up about it. I don’t need to know why you think it needs to be legalized and all of the “health” benefits it offers. Just smoke your weed and be happy about it.
I don’t mind drugs. I just find people who make it their personality annoying.
yeah i think any problem anyone has with the law should just be ignored
shit i thought when only white heterosexual men could vote was a good thing. turns out non white heterosexual people disagreed. god thats annoying that they talk about wanting rights and stuff.
just live under threat of prosecution and be happy dumbass.
Celebrities. CrossFit. Comics. Crypto.
Work outside of work. We’re at a bar after office hours, stop talking about work.
People talking about what alcohol they like. I don’t drink so it’s just boring to me and I can’t relate whatsoever.
That sort of talk disappears when you get older. People might briefly chat about their favorite whiskey or whatever, but they’re not having whole-ass conversations on the topic.
Nutrition and diet stuff.
(And here I go, talking about the stuff I don’t want to listen to other people harp on about! Haha.)
It’s mostly because I used to handle regulatory documentation for a food company, and as a part of that I read a LOT of mommy blogs/health blogs/etc. and discovered people are shockingly uneducated about the actual science of nutrition–but more than happy to talk about their ignorant misinformation at length, and gather followings online for it. People are also uneducated about the history of nutrition and food regulatory agencies and say a lot of stupid things there too.
You kinda see the same sort of problems arising that caused the anti-vaxx mindset. Anti-vaxxers come about because vaccines were so effective at preventing once-prevalent childhood diseases that people grow up without actually knowing people who got sick from those things, and they start tilting at windmills instead due to a lack of personal experience with the deadliness of certain diseases. (They attack the vaccine helping them, instead of having the experience to be scared of the disease.)
Likewise with food, food safety with pasteurization and such has been SO effective that you have things like raw-milk advocates crawling out of the woodwork because they’ve never actually heard about a toddler’s kidneys being damaged for life from salmonella. Apparently to them, their “freedom” to eke out…oh, some tiny unconfirmed extra “nutrition” from unpasteurized raw milk…somehow outweighs the very real risk of actual human beings becoming ill and dying. But historically back in the day tainted milk was a very real danger, killing kids and elderly and making others sick, it was a public health menace. The discovery of pasteurization was ground-breaking because it fixed that public health issue. But people who don’t know their history and haven’t seen with their own two eyes someone getting really sick from raw unpasteurized milk get fixated on some hypothetical damage being done to them or their freedoms if they can’t get or drink their raw, unpasteurized milk due to laws or regulations. They’re completely willing to let real people die on their minor molehill. Mostly because, as with anti-vaxxers, they haven’t seen what life is like when people are getting sick left and right from this stuff.
I also come from a background of trauma and abuse, and I’m extremely aware of how quickly control of food by someone antagonistic towards you can physically make you ill or sick very, very quickly. A lot of people have hot takes they think only affect them but which can fuck up other people if they were applied more broadly. There’s this disconnect that food is actually needed for people to live…probably because the people flapping their gums have never missed a meal.
The dose makes the poison.
For me, excessive self aggrandizing stories are unbearable. Everybody has a story about themselves where they are the hero, or did the amazing thing. That’s perfectly fine, and in reasonable doses is interesting to listen to.
However that guy who turns every and any conversion into a story about themselves strains both believability and interest beyond my breaking point.
Ninja air fryers, at my work there are loads of people who own them, and it’s on the verge of becoming a cult.
Dude! You can make tendies and fries in 15 minutes!!!
…Join usssss…
CLEARLY you don’t own an air fryer
Repeated discussions about problems that have no solution other than drop someone out of your life. If you aren’t going to ditch the person you are complaining about, then I really don’t want to hear any more about them.
opinions about gossip
Lately, just about everything.
Anime.
Technically I can relate to the dreams thing but for completely different reasons. Dreams on their own are fine to talk about IMO (most famously as a conversation starter and I even help host a group set up for them), but once in a while you’ll find literal dream preachers (my first BF was one of these, coming to the meal table was a chore), and I might ask something like “will this be on the test”. It’s not some kryptonite, it’s just dull-ish for a lack of a better word, though I’m not singling it out either.
Yeah, I studied psychology and I like to play Jung a bit when people feel the need to tell me about a dream they had, which in theory is by definition something their unconscious needs them to be aware of. So I ask what they think about it, what they felt at different points, etc. Usually the dream is either absolutely illegible, or unsurprisingly obvious. No in-between.
Just one dream at a time? I thought comparing/contrasting multiple dreams was part and parcel to that process.
Probably, but that’s an entire therapy process
Usually it’s culture that’s not their own, from a position of expertise. Theres a fairly good chance of putting out some really bad info and it can also come off as racially or culturally insensitive - which I want no part of. Extra cringe when it’s your own culture that they’re talking about and you’re put in that awkward position of having to do an ackchyually…
Can’t stand listening to tech “evangelists” talk about tech. It’s so hard no roll my eyes when someone goes on and on about how the _____ (block chain, AI, whatever buzz word we’re on now) will change the world. Like yes, but not in the way you are describing because it clear you fundamentally misunderstand the technology. I work in tech and there are really cool projects out there, and discussions with my peers are really insightful. However, when a person starts telling me how excited they are to get I chip in their brain to control their phone, I can’t help but wonder if they already have brain damage.
