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.
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.
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.
(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.
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.
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
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.
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