I’m not necessarily thinking of elderly Aunt Martha who loves to tell the story of the puppy she had when she was 5. Yeah, us geezers and near-geezers tend to repeat ourselves.
Rather, this is about that person who always works that one event/fact/accomplishment into the conversation, especially when meeting someone new. Think Howard Wolowitz and “When I was in space…”
I have a friend who was a victim of workplace violence. He was shot, but he played dead and the shooter left him alone before committing suicide. It’s understandable that he’d talk about it - I would too if I’d been shot. But this guy took it a step farther. He made a picture book and included copies of his x-rays, photos of the wounds, bandaged and open, plus newspaper clippings (this was in the early 90s.) He could work this story into any conversation on the flimsiest pretext.
What really struck me, and I’ve since learned there’s a lot of history behind all this - he was an accomplished professional, well-educated, quite intelligent, and adept in a number of fields. professionally and recreationally. So why did he have to dwell on this one event? Why could he not engage in banal conversation until his tale was appropriate to the flow?
I haven’t seen him now in almost 20 years, so I don’t know if he’s still doing it. But it’s really not the way I should remember him.
When people tell that they are going to or have been to Scotland I always tell the story about when I visited Loch Ness and there was a monster sited. This peaks their interest.
I drank so much at the last pub I stopped and peed in the lake! Children were crying and mothers were running for them clutching them close to their bosoms’, grown men were shaking there fist and grapping for pitchforks and torches and they were all shouting “Kill the monster, kill the monster!”. So I took the stairs back up the cliff and got back into my rental car and drove off.
I actually did pee in the Loch, but no one saw me. There, I shared it one more time, thank you very much.
Honestly, that sound to me like he’s got PTSD, and this was his self-directed way of trying to cope with it. If this was 20 years ago, maybe it was never diagnosed. Maybe he’s gotten help with it more recently, since it’s a more common topic of discussion these days.
There was a guy I used to occasionally have to hang out with because he was a friend of a friend. He had traveled extensively during a period of his life, and to some locations that would be considered both exotic and iffy on the tourism advisory list. He had this really annoying thing in which, no matter what the conversation topic was, he’d very pompously work in an anecdote that began “that reminds me of the time I was in Cairo…” or some other exotic locale. This was in response to just about anything. “The dry cleaner ruined my expensive jacket.” “That reminds me of the time I was in Cairo…”
Eventually when I got to know him better I realized he did it out of insecurity, and he said the traveling that he did at the time was after a breakup that left him devastated, and he traveled to exotic and iffy locales to get away from the pain and in addition, almost from a suicide wish, tempting fate by going to places that might be dangerous or at least unfriendly to a Westerner. I liked him better after that; not because he went through a hard time, but because he was finally being real and genuine about something.
He could be, but it struck me as “Hey, here’s something else great and cool about me!!” which is kinda the way he was before. I’ve known him since college and he’s always made sure everyone knows how smart and clever and talented he is. Then again, my view may be colored by the past.
There was a girl in our high school who was a compulsive liar, and liked to tell a frequently-changing story about the time she was gang-raped in Miami. We used to joke that she would introduce herself to new students as “Dawn Marie, rape victim”.
There, I shared it one more time, thank you very much.