What do people who have been conversing regularly over decades, have left to talk about?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Well I am interested and engaged in a lot of things, have experienced a lot and have an opinion on a lot of things.

Problem 1: Of these things I have to say, 95 % fail the “Could this conceivably be interesting to the other person?” test. For example, my work (except remarks about the relevant market, in very broad strokes) would bore anyone other than some hundreds of people in the whole world to tears. Much the same goes for some of my personal interests, which it would be cruel and unusual to inflict on the uninterested.

Which still leaves a lot to talk about with people I am catching up after years, as with @wolfpup and his friend upthread.

Problem 2: With people I talk with often (in the extreme case, my wife), 95-99 % of the rest fail the “have I not already talked about this with this person, or has what I have to say changed since then?” test. Which leaves very little that can in good conscience be said.

22

Alcohol makes these pesky little thoughts go away.

23

To be clear, the point I was making is that despite not having seen each other in years, we bonded not as long-separated semi-strangers, but as close friends who had last seen each other just yesterday. IIRC, not much of what we talked about was “catching up”, in part because, as one gets older, our world becomes more static and rate of change drastically slows. Our conversation was more like the usual enjoyable babble we engaged in for decades in our youths.

The only specific subject I can recall was politics, and there’s an irony there, too, considering what close friends we were. I’m pretty liberal and he was a far-right conservative. He would make some statement about the political situation and I’d tell him he was a regressive idiot, and he’d tell me I was a naive moron, then we’d have another drink and discuss where to go for dinner. :grin:

24

I will “celebrate” 52 years with my wife this summer and your point is well taken. If I digress and mention an old girlfriend she is vocal about Not wanting to hear about that. I have stopped working in the past year and the only really safe topics are things I have fantasized about myself but instead, I tell my wife that I “read about that topic” or I credit it to “something one of my brothers told me” .

My impression is anymore that her real reason for staying with me is not that she enjoys my company, but in fact that she fears abandonment. Sad to say. As a previous writer noted,.. alcohol is real help here!! Oh it is nearly 5 O- clock martini time

25

I second that emotion

26

@Kropotkin …thank you. You’re all my best friends. Really.

:grinning_face:

27

I just saw my bestie this weekend, someone I’ve known for literally as long as I can remember, and have exchanged letters with, visited with, occasionally gone on vacation with, and talked on the phone with for over 50 years. We still talk like we’re being paid by the word, and like @wolfpup said, mostly not about routine catching-up stuff, either.

Any ordinary mundane remark just opens more doors to other perspectives and topics. “I think you should get these pull-out units for your kitchen cabinets, they make it so easy to access your stuff!” “I’m totally not calling you crazy and I am definitely following up on a lot of your recommendations, but I gotta say I’m not feeling it about the spending hundreds of dollars to marginally improve access to stuff that I don’t find it particularly inconvenient to access anyway.” “I get that, but I find they really lower the threshold for motivation to get out kitchen stuff and start cooking.” “Ah, that’s because you’re a different Clutterbug type, the storage access is more of a barrier for you than it is for us Crickets!” “Do you really think that corny little commercial classification schemes like that are telling people anything useful about themselves?” “Well, all these divide-people-into-n-types schemes are arbitrary and artificial, from astrology down to Myers-Briggs, but I think they provide a framework for people to sort through their self-assessment, and for that purpose one’s probably as good as another” and on and on and on.

Would this conversation seem boring and pointless as hell to most other people? Probably! The point is that we’re both still really comfortable with, and really interested in, the different ways we think, and even small unremarkable remarks give us new stuff to think about.

Yes, being able to be silent together is also great, and some relationships are more heavy on the mutual companionable silence than on the conversation. I’m not trying to advocate constant chatter for chatter’s sake, I know that incessant one-sided communication with no effort at real mutual engagement can be tedious and frustrating! There is no one right way to communicate in relationships.

I will say, though, that if either party is consistently unhappy or bored or frustrated with how conversation patterns are developing, that is most likely an issue with the relationship, rather than just a natural consequence of aging or relationship longevity. If there’s a limited and dwindling supply of things that you’re interested in saying to your wife, and she feels deprived of conversation on that account, then maybe you never had a sustainably fulfilling and self-renewing communication channel working? You didn’t notice because you had an accumulated stockpile and a small supply stream of things to say, but as you draw down that stockpile, it’s not spontaneously refilling with new things you’re interested in saying.

Are you maybe just a natural “rare-talker”, one of those people who’s genuinely content to utter a spontaneous remark once every week or month or so? Or do you have more spontaneous conversational impulse with other people, and it’s just talking to your wife that seems like more of a chore?

28

Assuming you read all of the responses to your OP, and the various suggestions given, it feels like, based on the above, you are choosing to self-censor, and assuming that no one wants to hear about nearly everything that you might have to talk about.

If none of the topic areas or types of things which anyone else has suggested to you seem to be something that you find relevant or a solution, unless you’re willing to stop self-censoring, you’re kinda stuck.

29

What have i talked about with my husband lately?

The cats. What they are up to, what they need.

The seasons. It’s spring. Everything is in bloom. The world smells nice.

Dinner

The new waffle recipe he tried when he made mother’s Day brunch for me and the kids.

The rabbit damage to the seedling crab apple i had grafted, and the bridge graft i attempted to save it. (It’s not dead yet. But I’m not too hopeful.)

Why I’m buying a blueberry bush to replace a dwarf cherry.

The frustrations of working with his boss.

Whether I’m working too much

Complaints about our health

The bicycle rides he’s taken recently

Bridge hands

Preparations for the trips we are going on. (He just left. I’ll be leaving right before he gets home.)

Other stuff. None of it is earth shattering.

30

The series “Mad About You” came back for one season 25 years after the previous season. One episode was pretty much entirely about toothpicks.

After dining at a restaurant, Paul grabs a complimentary toothpick as they leave. Jamie looks at him like he committed a cardinal sin because he didn’t get her a toothpick. They spend the entire episode debating this until Paul finally caves.

Maybe you could “test” your relationship with your wife with some minor nitpick to see how far the conversation goes, then apologize and make up.

31

@Mops I have heard an anecdote of two stereotypical Swedes meeting for a regular visit during which literally no words are uttered except “Hello”, “Would you like some coffee?”, “Yes, please”, “Would you like some more coffee,” and “Good-bye”.

So, in some cultures, it is not necessary, considered aberrant even, to conduct content-free discussions or make small talk for the sole purpose of filling the silence, and people who know each other well can hang out together without talking all the time.