Today’s post comes as a text from Bart, the bear who found a smart phone in the woods.
Hey,
Bart here with some advice for you. Show a little respect for someone else’s personal details before you go sharing them around, eh?
I know I’m a bear. So I get it that I don’t get to have privacy. That’s obvious. It’s “does-a-bear-poop-in-the-woods” obvious.
I am a bear, and we do. No big surprise.
So you have to wonder why it winds up being in the news.
I get it that this was in somebody’s back yard and not in the actual WOODS, but c’mon. Outside is outside. So what if you cut the grass and raked the leaves? It still looks like a bathroom to me. And all the other stuff in that article about how timid bears are and how bad it is to feed us and how if you dump a bag of Cheetos in the yard it’ll cut my life expectancy in half?
Again – no big surprise.
If you ate a whole bag of Cheetos off your lawn, it would probably kill you outright.
I’m just amazed at the obvious nonsense you go out of your way to tell each other. This is what comes from all that extra time you’ve got because you don’t have to forage for food in May when things aren’t growing yet and there’s a surprising amount of ground that’s still covered with snow.
So who cares who pooped where? Any conversation that’s not about the weather seems like a waste to me. Especially conversations about waste. Just sayin’.
Your pal,
Bart
It sounds like Bart is getting a little cranky because he’s wide awake and food is scarce. I’m sure he wishes he’d overslept.
How do you excuse yourself from a pointless conversation?
Trail Baboon 
If I’m on my land line and feel like ending a conversation, I dial my home number from my cell phone, then tell the person on my land line that I have a call I have to take. If I’m on my cell phone, I use my land line to call myself. There’s no integrity in doing this, but it saves me from a boring conversation. Thank heaven for that little pause created by call waiting!
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I just don’t have that problem. I live in such isolation that I’ll talk to any jackass who isn’t a telemarketer. Two days ago I got a wrong number call, but it was the first call I’d gotten in two days. Some woman said she was hoping that Mary was feeling better. I could have gotten rid of her in seconds, but it was the most interesting call I’d had in some time so I chatted with her and told her how sorry I was that Mary was under the weather.
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🙂
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Good morning. I guess it depends on the person that is involved. For telemarketers I usually just hangup and if I can tell what is coming it only takes me a few seconds to do this. Sometimes I listen to the marketer for a short time to find out what they are offering. Then I hang up after telling them that is what I am going to do. If it is someone I don’t want to offend, when visiting in person or over the phone, I say that I have something I have to do and need to go. I’m sure there are times when I talk too much and the person I am talking to would like to leave.
With regard to fund raising calls, I will take time to listen is the fund raiser if they are from a group I support or I might be interested in supporting. I have made some fundraising calls myself. I don’t like getting a lot of these calls, but I know that at least some of them are being done by people who are trying to get support for something they think is important.
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pointless conversation looks so similar to the everyday conversation I have I usually don’t rrealize it was pointless until later. if I start filtering out pointless conversation I may be in a very quiet world.
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What? There is no need to cut back on conversation because it might seem to be pointless. Just refer to seemingly pointless conversation as small talk. Of course, if that small talk gets too annoying, it could be classified as pointless talk that is to be avoided.
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There are a couple of people I see regularly who talk about things that I am just amazed would catch anyone’s attention. When I try to analyze it, it seems like they’re just letting their stream of consciousness out into the atmosphere. Dave Barry has a hilarious piece about sitting next to a woman on a plane who has no filter between what’s in her head and what comes out her mouth. And it’s not like you can get a word in edgewise to steer the conversation somewhere else. About all you can do is, as Joel used to say, smile and nod.
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Headphones are good
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RISE AND SHINE BABOONS!
In my younger years I was quite diffident about this, afraid to say much. Now, in my post-estrogen years, I am pretty direct. I say stuff like, “I disagree with you, ” or “I don’t have time for this,” or “I don’t want to talk right now.” Pretty effective, but this strategy makes no friends.
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I am on and off the blog these days. What has happened to Clyde?
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Don’t know, Jacque. A couple of weeks ago he wrote that he was dealing with something or other (pretty vague as I recall), but he was still posting on Facebook and his blog. Now he isn’t even been doing that since April 26th. Sure hope he’s alright.
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“Now he isn’t even been doing that since April 26th.” What happens when you change your mind about what you’re going to say mid-sentence.
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Daughter sometimes thinks that everything I or her dad say is pointless conversation, and ends it abruptly by telling us “that’s really dumb” or “you are so weird”. I envy the masterful way she can manage the situation, but I just can’t find it in me to tell other people the same things (even though I often have the same opinion of their conversations as daughter has of mine).
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Excessive carrying on about the weather can fall into the area of pointless discussion. Today in falls in the area horrifying discussion. I can hardly believe that we are getting several more inches of snow on the 3rd of May after getting at least 10 inches yesterday.
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It depends. With a stranger, I’ll just politely say “I have to go.” Of course, that doesn’t work if you’re strapped into the seat next to them for a long flight, but so far I’ve not had that problem. I have a friend who calls me on the phone from time to time who tends to keep a conversation going long past the time when we had anything meaningful to exchange. She’ll just go on and on, and repeat herself endlessly. Fortunately, I have caller ID. When I see a call is from her, and I’m in the middle of something, or don’t feeling particularly patient at the moment, I’ll just let it ring. I’ll return the call at a time when I’m prepared to listen and spend 15 minutes on the phone. (Normally my phone calls are considerably shorter than that.) I have another friend who drives me crazy relating minute details that I couldn’t care less about in every conversation. She’s aware that it is a problem in her social interactions with people that she monopolizes every conversation, and has even gone to counseling to try to fix it, all to no avail. She just can’t stop herself. With her I’ll sometimes interrupt her and say “Mary, can we get to the point of the story,” and that will generally dislodge her for a few minutes. I try to be patient with these friends, I figure they’re lonely and have a much greater need to talk than I do. It’s a catch twenty-two situation: If they led more interesting lives, they’d have more interesting things to talk about, in which case they may not want to talk with me.
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I was so hoping for some words of wisdom from the collective Baboon mind on this subject. I’m hearing a lot about banal conversation, and I can manage a fair amount of that, having been a pastor’s daughter and a costumer in a fitting room for many hours, I can do “chat” with the best of them.
The situation I go to rather odd lengths to avoid involves with the across the street climate change denier. Bit chilly out? Unusual snowfall late in the season-I’m gonna have to hear about how much smarter he is from all those fools who believe in global warming. And what would be so wrong with that-you could golf all year in Minnesota, just like it was Florida, and on and on.
Thing is, I have to be standing out there getting the snow off my car, I am a sitting duck. So I’ve taken to trying to get out there super early to avoid him-failing that, I get right in the car, turn on the de-frosters and try to wait him out.
I also make it a serious and committed point to drive myself anyplace where I know the family conservatives will be out in force- I don’t offer rides either. Nothing worse than being trapped in a vehicle you are not in control of with a lot of claptrap.
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I feel your pain, mig. In cases like your neighbor, I show no mercy whatsoever, but you’re right, it’s completely pointless to try to discuss or impart any information to someone who has no interest in the facts. I just received an email from a woman, a retired French professor from Des Moines, with her usual conservative claptrap about how no one remembers why the Department of Energy was established by the Carter administration and the annual cost to tax payers, and blah, blah, blah. I sent a short note in return saying that as far as I’m concerned, I have a lot more questions and concerns about the Department of Homeland Security. She knows I’m liberal, yet keeps sending me this crap, and I just shoot right back.
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I remember listening to a lot of talk I found to be somewhat offensive in teacher’s break rooms when I was doing substitute teaching. It was most often the teacher’s aids that said things that disturbed me. I usually just kept my mouth shut. I lot of it was the kind of thing you hear from tea party types. I did speak up for religious freedom when I was told that public schools should allow teachers to impose their religious believes on their students. I got the silent treatment after making that statement.
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Where were you teaching, Jim?
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The Albert Lea School District.
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it is so scary that the tea party is allowed to teach. cant we do backgorund checks as the the mental degradation being allowed to talk to americas youth while they are at a developmental stage in their lives?
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If your neighbor were sensitive, mig, he would already know that this topic distresses you. He isn’t. He is a bit of a dolt, so you are allowed to be more assertive than you would be if you talked to a sensitive person. What you need to do, the next time he hits you with his hobbyhorse arguments, is to put a fence around that topic. Make it a disallowed topic of conversation.
You can say, “Look, we see this issue differently. I know you don’t agree with my view, and I don’t agree with yours. I know I won’t change your mind if I present my views, so you can appreciate that your views won’t change the way I see this. It is unpleasant for me to engage in this pointless debate. If I show you respect by not trying to change you, can you be respectful by not trying to change me? In other words, let’s talk about anything in the world except this topic.”
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While I think this guy may well be a dolt, Steve, his problem isn’t lack of sensitivity. He knows perfectly well that he and mig are on opposite sides of this debate. He’s deliberately being obnoxious, and I think it’s a waste of time having any conversation with him.
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I understood mig’s post differently. To me, it seemed she was happy to be friendly with the guy except for the obnoxious way he kept coming at her on this topic. If she doesn’t like him or care what he thinks, your response is better.
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I think you’re right that mig is perfectly happy to be friendly with anyone, especially a neighbor.
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headphones work great. stare off into the distance in a trancelike mode of self absorbtion.
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I feel a need to express my view with more nuance. Most of you know I have a 90-year-old friend whom I write to every morning. She is as liberal as anyone on this forum, more liberal than I. She has a daughter in VA who is as rock-ribbed conservative as my friend is liberal. The daughter phones weekly to engage in long, l-o-n-g conversations, usually diatribes against blacks, Obama, tax-and-spend Democrats, Obamacare, global warming Chicken Littles and so forth. And she gets extreme. She is conspiracy-minded and says a lot of wild stuff.
My friend loves her daughter and is happy to hear from her, but she routinely has been physically ill after these phone calls. She sometimes goes into a black mood that lasts for days. I wouldn’t call these moods “life-threatening,” but they don’t fall much short of that.
I’ve been working for years to get my friend to put a fence around all political talk. She has promised her daughter that she will not proselytize her if the daughter can just leave her views alone. This might sound simple, but is not. The daughter was outraged at first and then acted martyred because she had had a muzzle put on her. Surprisingly, it has been truly hard for my friend to avoid jabbing at her daughter’s political views. They both are committed partisans who find it difficult to restrain themselves.
And yet it works. The daughter needs to be reminded from time to time, but she has FINALLY decided to let go of her right wing diatribes and settle for talking about the weather.
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I can imagine it would be very difficult to accept that your offspring has swung in a political direction opposite from your own views. (I bet Cb would have something to contribute to this conversation.) For most people, blood is a strong bond, and I think that’s exactly why mig maintains contact with some of her relatives that she’d rather not share a long car ride with. Having met your friend, Steve, I can attest to the fact that she’s a delightful and interesting old woman. It saddens me to know that her conversations with her daughter have been reduced to talk about “safe” topics, something neither of them are passionate about, but in their circumstances, it may well be for the best.
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I have a friend that will look you square in the face and say, “Why are we having this conversation?”
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I have been know to do that. Sometimes it gets to be too much. With husband, we’ll with some regularity agree to disagree. Neither of us will budge and it’s completely futile to try to convince the other, so we agree to disagree and move on to the next topic.
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Couples do this, PJ, and I think it works. My daughter and her husband have what they call “the fifteen minute conversation.” When they sense they have hit upon a core disagreement, they declare a “fifteen minute conversation.” He says his piece and she says hers, and then they walk away from it knowing that they disagree but are happy to go on with things.
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Related to this conversation is the “preaching to the choir” concept. Just as unproductive, but not nearly as enervating.
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Here’s an idea: So as to make a pointless conversation more interesting, do it in a foreign accent of some sort. Like a British, Indian, German, French, Russian or Italian accent to mention a few obvious ones, or perhaps even Skandihoovian. Think of the possibilities! Maybe you could tailor the accent to the particular issue on hand as it relates to your perception of the culture you associate with whatever language you have chosen. I think this concept could have some merit.
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At least make it more fun and tolerable, that for sure.
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love it
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Amazingly enough, Music Man illustrates today’s topic as well!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbhnRuJBHLs
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I have always loved the way that actress says “Balzac”. After I heard that the first time, I just had to check some Balzac out of the publoic libray to see what the scandal was all about.
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Greetings! I have a short attention span for pointless or boring conversations and in general, my own conversations tend to be short and to the point (I hope!). Like others, I try to find a somewhat polite and quick exit, if possible. My oldest sister for the longest time, could easily dominate a conversation, even in my large family. But she is highly intelligent, usually talks about something fascinating, and is knowledgeable on a wide range of topics — and can keep going endlessly.
One of my other older sisters had taken her to task on several occasions for totally monopolizing conversations. During one emotional intervention, oldest sister was in tears admitting that she just could not help herself — any voids in conversation had to be filled. She knew what she was doing, but just couldn’t stop it. Finally, after some therapy, she’s now on meds that have calmed her down. When I saw her at Thanksgiving, she was so very different and quiet. She says she feels happier, can think more clearly and be more focused now. But she seems just a tad zombi-fied compared to her former sparkling, but quirky conversation. I’m not sure what the diagnosis was — ADD or bi-polar something … I sort of miss the fascinating stuff she brought up — you wanted her on your team for Trivial Pursuit. But at least now, a quiet person like me can get a word in.
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Hopefully, it will balance out eventually so she can be quieter AND sparkling & quirky. Maybe they can adjust her meds…the meds are supposed to help her not take away her personality.
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On Wednesday I had to sit and listen as a group of middle aged guys shot the breeze while we were all waiting for our vehicles to get repaired. It was unfortunate that the waiting room TV was tuned to FOX news. It had a malign influence on the conversation. I just kept my mouth shut. The next day I got a hair cut, and had to listen to the inane (but somewhat entartaining) local gossip between the hairdressers and their customers. Husband and I have pretty interesting conversations that many people in town would consider strange and esoteric. We have fun and always have lots to talk about with one another.
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La chanson de rigueur.
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Excellent.
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