Excluding the obvious ones such as politics, what topics can't you stand listening to people talk about?
Excluding the obvious ones such as politics, what topics can't you stand listening to people talk about?
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.
Sport. I just not interested in discussing the topic as a spectator.
Ohh and MLM shit.
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.
Agree on CrossFit. At my last job, there was a group of people who went together and would talk about it. For hours, every day. Got really sick of hearing about it. My wife even joined up for a while. While she had fun and it was good for her, I just didn't have the patience to listen to her talk about it and all the gym gossip when she got home. I felt guilty knowing I should be more supportive, but I just couldn't do it after hearing about WODs all day.
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.
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!
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.
People talking about wanting to lose weight or dieting. It’s one thing to say “I’m going to skip dessert because I’m watching what I eat” but more often than not, it turns into this dark, self hating thing, e.g. “I gained so much weight over the holidays, I can’t believe I’m up to X lbs, I look so ugly.” Women especially seem to bond over these conversations and it makes me really uncomfortable and sad to be honest.
Their kids.
Work outside of work. We’re at a bar after office hours, stop talking about work.
Sports.
Yup, I figured I would not be the first to say this.
I've gotten to the point that I don't mind a hearing a quick overview of whatever the latest game is, but I really really don't want to hear a half hour analysis of which player on what team is going to lead them to victory and why coach x is far better than coach y.
This, but primarily when someone is confounded by the idea that im not into sports. Ive had this happen with a few things, but sports are one of the weireder ones. I mean to the point of them going, nah you like sports, then continuing ro go on a rant about sone game.like i know im into a lot of stuff others arent, but if they sont want to talk about it, thats perfectly fine
LOL, when I moved to the South (American) people were stunned that I knew nothing about the SEC (regional college football conference) and didn't have a favorite.
It was a big deal, for both men and women, around the office. Now that I'm at a software dev, people rarely comment, and only on their local team.
Go local sports team!
Yeah if it lasts more than a couple minutes I just walk away, my presence is not wanted in that conversation anyway.
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.
Gossip. Even talking about gossip.
Can't stand when someone recites a previous conversation instead of telling me the subject and results of the conversation. He said blah blah blah blah, she said blah blah blah blah, then she said blah blah blah... 🤦
Just talking poorly about a person in general is annoying to me. I don't care to hear it. If they did something heinous like traffic people please let me know that but I really can't care to know that your ex partner or soon to be ex partner did a, b, and c. I hear at least once a week someone saying their ex "has a small dick anyways" and comments about their sex life. I don't care. I don't want to know. I just want to tell those people to leave me alone but they obviously are already upset and trying to rage out so I don't want to deal with the what happens after I tell them that. Likely just more rage now focused at me then.
....I really need to find new places to hang out.
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.
The gf's father is like this. Every visit is a story of some famous or rich person/people he spent the day with as a buddy not an employee of, or the more common one of his outage and how he one upped someone or put a group of people in their place, at least in his story.
Then he wonders why his son doesn't want to deal with him, while I see his adult son being a outrage clone of him in a way with stories of injustices against him. His rage is simmering as he tells the stories about every employer, coworker, supervisor, or government agency that is wrong or out to get him. Lately it's been how the school teachers are plain wrong when it comes to how much of a pain his son is becoming and how his lectures of these elementary teachers is going.
In relation miss my late father's stories of how much the little town I grew up had changed since my last visit which was often the same stories or my other family members do nothing stories that never change either. The energy level of that is pretty low looking back now...
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.
Oohh I get this one. Me to a friend the other day: "As long as you're still getting a divorce, I LOVE YOU!" If she doesn't go through with this divorce, we're not friends anymore...
opinions about gossip
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
Lately, just about everything.
Weed, alcohol, other drugs and Bar stories. I do not partake, but due to it being common amung my peers it is hard to avoid. To them that thing they experienced at that one bar 4 weeks ago is the funniest thing, but I cannot relate at all and its kinda frustrating because I do not intend to partake in such activities just to keep up socially. Same with smoke breaks.
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I seem to get the version on how wasted they got and sick they were afterwards. It's like they unlock new achievement badges each weekend by how much they throw up the next day.
I'm left thinking you're getting into your late 30s or 40s now. This isn't your teens and early 20s anymore.
I've enjoyed when seeing some of these hard partiers mature and nope out now after a few years. But honestly being a alcoholic seems to the baseline starting place for many when it comes to socializing.
I know I'm a drag for them when I'm at a nice hotel and I'm not joining in with a cooler bag full of beers or hard stuff to get the party started before going to dinner. The gf is younger and a little frustrated I'm just not interested in that anymore or was I ever really.
She's coming to terms with her inability to not be sick after a night of drinking as she gets older now too. Being health conscious she's coming to the realization that alcohol consumption is perhaps not the best thing for her long term either based on the health of her long term friends still trying to keep up with being wasted every weekend.
I don't know if this is unpopular or not, but I really don't like hearing about folks' medical history. Like yes, I know you have anxiety/diabetes/whatever because you tell me every single time I see you. I, too, have a condition that requires me to take multiple pills everyday for my whole life, but you'd never know it bc I don't make it my identity. I'd rather not, and I'd rather not others who aren't facing death do it. On some cases I guess it speaks to the status of mental health care in my country since it almost seems like a cry for help that I just cannot answer.
Internet drama.
Anime.
As a European, when an American talks about his gun collection.
They're somehow so proud, and want you to be impressed about how much they go on about their guns.
Please. We're not all barbarians here. Shut the fuck up.
I'm European and I can appreciate a nice gun.
As an American, I can’t stand it when Europeans gripe about or insult American culture. Not because some parts of our culture don’t deserve it, but because you guys have made it one of your national pastimes. It’s pathetic. Get some therapy for your insecurities.
You're right, all any of us do, all day, non stop is gripe or insult American culture. Why only the other day, I was in the shop and when I got to the till to pay, all me and the cashier could talk about was America. "That'll be £44.99 please love and did you see the latest data about gun deaths in America?" God, we're so insecure.
No what's pathetic is the inescapable bullshit we keep hearing about America. What's pathetic is that America considers itself so fucking important that the ENTIRE world got to know about it when some politician farts. What's pathetic is that America doesn't even have something as simple as a proper healthcare system, like an actual civilised country, yet spares no expense rubbing in everyone's that they're some kind of world leader.
You don't want better countries to insult American... Uh... "culture", then either evolve into something better or shut the fuck up.
As an American, that has literally never happened to me.
American - in my life i think I've heard two people talk about gun collections. One is an idiot. The other one just mentioned it because she was telling me a story about moving her father-in-law's things and getting stopped at a federal checkpoint with guns in her car.
I feel that way about guns and I'm American. It isn't a hobby, it isn't a passion, it's a fetish. They never want to admit why they're so adamant on having access to any amount of guns they want isn't for any practical purpose outside they think they're cool and they feel powerful owning them. There's also a subset of gun owners here who have guns for "home defense" but they fantasize about someone breaking into their house so they can shoot them. It's god damn sick, I hate gun ownership culture here. The last reason people love to trot out is the 2nd amendment will help protect the people against a corrupt government, again playing to the sense that gun nuts are some how on part training and mentality wise to a professional military. If the US government ever tried suppressing the population using the military, no amount of Big Gun-Nut Energy and a closet full of guns will stop the real soldiers.
The only way we'll ever curb mass shootings is to pass laws restricting gun ownership to the types of guns with low capacities like break action shotguns or low capacity bolt action rifles. Essentially just down to hunting firearms. But that will never happen here, it's typically right leaning folks who love their guns an unhealthy amount, and right leaning politicians are swing further and further into crazy shit to appease their extreme voting base.
So instead of any good sense gun laws, we get laws being repealed to make gun ownership easier and easier, open carry, conceal carry etc etc. To even hint at laws to bring down the the amount of mass shootings, people screech like howler monkeys. They love the "slippery slope" argument, where any law to restrict any type of gun will lead to the government coming and forcefully taking their guns. They are crazy people.
It isn’t a hobby, it isn’t a passion, it’s a fetish.
Are you kink shaming?
When people talk about content like they talk about drugs. The whole "we need to get more people to lemmy. I am doing my part because i post daily into empty communitiys and you should to. ".
I physically cringe reading it. Fake activism to frame a addiction.
who's talking about drugs like that?
unless u mean the American healthcare system and our all American prescription ad campaigns (that are allowed for some reason) then carry on
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...
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.
Horoscopes & astrology, and celebrity gossip.
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.
Alignment in RPGs
Pathfinder just removed alignment from their system entirely.
common paizo w
Wait why
Because paladins should genocide X people or lose their powers or batman does not have free will and other silly assertations like that that'll invariably pop up. It doesnt hold up beyond a surface level glance and almost never even actually matters, but people have really long and exhausting debates over it anyway.
"Artificial Intelligence". The marketing has overtaken reality and common sense. Until the datasets are re-evaluated with information given with consent, I refuse to consider this snake oil anything more than a fad.
I was in the grocery store the other day and saw a fridge pack of Coca-Cola that said "taste the new futuristic flavor that was created with the help of AI!" 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
I would have thought they of all people would have learned about line extension and how great New Coke turned out for them
As a person who loves talking about AI I'd like to note that by AI "we" usually mean AGI (artificial general intelligence) and not generative AI like chatGPT or midjourney.
I love Sci-Fi. One of my favourite authors is Philip K. Dick and I've written stories about AI.
I cannot grant the concession that the likes of ChatGPT and Midjourney qualify for the moniker of AI. It would require lowering my standard for what I constitute to be intelligence, such as having a basic degree of awareness. ChatGPT for example will contradict itself and hallucinate information (not new information, just irrelevant and incorrect information) and can do so in the same response. This is not intelligence, this is the mere imitation of intelligence and that is not sufficient.
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Having movies explained to me
I don’t like to talk about video games and stuff because people keep telling me to shut the fuck up
Anything that you can tell they don't know much about but they still talk about it like if they know. I guess that's more of a type of person that a subject but I don't mind chatting people up about what they like most of the time
Any rant that I've heard from the same person more than a few times
I either don't talk to people much except for cutesy convos about weather or something or I know them well and im generally cool about whatever they want to talk about. At first I thought you meant online things which omg there are so many things but I block and subscribe my way to getting what im interested in.
Health related bullshit like a "cleanse" and other woowoo health shit, especially when people talk authoritatively about it. Look, Jenny, you obviously don't know shit about what you are talking about because you wouldn't be talking about it if you did.
If you need a cleanse, your fucking kidneys and liver are broken. Seek help.
Nutrition. I spent years reading about nutrition to the point of being afraid to eat basically anything, I went to a "nutritionist" school with a strong anti animal product bent.
I don't want to hear your nutrition "facts." If it works for you, good for you! If you want my advice about what works for me, I'll freely give it when asked. But literally every research based bit of nutrition advice can be contradicted with another bit of research based nutrition advice and most people are working with a model of nutrition science from about 1995.
I swear if I have to listen to one more emotional to the point of tears monologue about the perils of soy/dairy/meat/gluten/carbs/cholesterol/saturated fat/vegetables/"modern fruits"/grains/unfermented foods/bioaccumulated whatevers/etc WHILE I'M TRYING TO EAT, I may take advantage of my pointy food weapons.
Eat what makes you feel vibrant and leave everyone else alone.
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I think there are two types of people who describe dreams: 1) Those who are essentially saying, "Listen to this absurdity, isn't it hilarious/weird?" and 2) those who are trying to pick up insights and think their dreams mean something. It's the difference between reading a fantasy novel that is all about characters, world building, and a cool story, and a fantasy novel where the author is trying to make some point about the real world and how something should or should not be.
I definitely fall in line with OP's sentiments about that second category.
Genetic engineering
any vent or rant that comes out of nowhere.. if ppl ask me if i'm in a good headspace to listen before saying anything, ofc that's cool! but ppl who just walk up and start talking about their bullshit i don't care about are super annoying imo
Mate, you're either gonna hate this or love it: https://youtu.be/Mq_wZE93ZAY?si=GDsIRT3XyqsPCIqR
Stuff that's entirely subjective, like their enjoyment of TV shows, movies, how they feel about religion, etc.
I get that these things mean a lot to the speaker, but its just a statement I can either agree with or disagree with. I can't really have a conversation, since it's personal preference.
That's rough. My heart goes out to you on that one. If you don't mind me asking, what is it about for example a movie that you have trouble conversing? Is is a lack of caring about the movie itself so it is along the lines of you can say you liked it or not but were not invested enough to talk about plot points or which actors did well?
I try these days to just think of the characters and see if they had a purpose of being there, and if they did, what that purpose was to see if maybe it could have been better represented. All of which is opinionated as you said, it isn't facts so I am never right, but at least I get to imagine a slightly different version in my head for a second that might give me a chuckle.