I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.
Kahlil Gibran

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.
Albert Einstein

Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.
Albert Einstein

I am new to this forum and have been having a read through some of the older posts while I sit at the irport waiting for my flight to board (i arrived way too early!). I just had to respond to this post though as I loved how you handled the tool at the market. Noice.  

Reading through everyones responses my conversation killers are a combination of most of yours but in particular, something I find enormously off putting is somebody who doesn’t consistently look in your eye when conversing. Instead they continuously flick their eyes down at your top, your pants, whatever then back up to your face and down again, as if under the impression I cant see what they’re doing. It makes me feel extremely self-conscious and what I would like to say is “what the he’ll are you looking at?” but what I normally do is drop my gaze to wherever they’re looking and pause… I might even frown just slightly. It’s a silent interaction but it speaks volumes to them as I can see their struggle plain as day on their face for the rest of the conversation, trying their darndest to not flick their eyes away agan.

Another killer for me is the person who always tries to match or top what you say usually when it involves some kind of ailment eg ME: “my left foot is aching for some reason” THEM “mine has been aching too, but it’s been like that for days now” ME: ”I’ve had such a headache today” THEM: “oh well I was up half the night with a migraine… I’m running on two hours sleep and I still have a 12 hour shift to do”. I suppose this is just a variation on the person who always relates every part of a conversation back to themselves somehow… what’s with that? Seriously?! I usually just smile, no response, walk away. It’s either that or run the risk of being mean or starting a fight & frankly I’m not interested. 

In saying that, I recently ended a long time friendship I had with a high-school friend when I finally had enough of pretending it was ok for her to say some of the things she would say to me. She was judgemental and often harsh but would attempt to sugar coat comments with “I don’t mean to sound harsh but…” “it’s just my opinion but you need to…” “i don’t know why you’re like that, not that it’s a bad thing” etc. I have some pretty deep self esteem issues so I put up with that crap and more for years, even thinking many times that she was being just trying to be a good friend in her own way. Bollocks. She cares about herself, her world, only. I finally realised that I didn’t deserve this and that while maybe she did actually care about our friendhip, her way of showing it was no longer acceptable to me & if nothing else we had simply grown apart. So it was bye bye BFF’s. I honestly feel so much better now it’s done so at this moment I’m definitely sitting in the camp with those that think “he’ll yeah you should tell someone they’re being rude”. Just do it with tact & respect. Don’t mimic their rudeness or arrogance etc otherwise you’re just as bad. Stooping never accomplishes anything.

Enyhoo I reckon I’ve rambled enough for my first post… Happy hump day!  

Glad it gave you a giggle.

BTW, I think we have the same father (stranger things have happened).

Enjoy the rest of your Wednesday.

Christina xxx

Me: I don’t know about you, but it’s quite possible my favorite motivational speaker is Kermit the Frog…
Her: Oh yeah. Right. Right.
Me: I saw him on college campus. He really is great.
Her: Mm hm.
Me: You should go see him speak next time he’s got an engagement.
Her: Of course. Right. Yeah. Uh huh. (nod nod nod).

I’m tempted to see how much I can get away with.

An hour and a quarter later, she was still probably none the wiser on what I had been doing and showing astonishment at stuff that I had been telling her my involvement in for at least 3 years.
Even her story about going to court to get back her license after losing it for 6 months for drunk driving, didn’t cause her incredible embarassment, but was obviously just another example of her fabulousness when the judge couldn’t believe her age! I thought he may have been incredulous that at her age she could be so bloody stupid, but if that’s what he meant, it was lost on her!!

People who use every comment you make in a conversation to be a pivot point for another story about themselves are what really cheese me right off.

My mother in law is another perfect example, but I won’t go there, just relay something I say when impersonating her conversational prowess. ” Anyway, that’s enough about me. What do you think about me?”. It never fails to amuse me.

Too bad the guy in the shop isn’t a student type.