Yeesh, considering I’m a fair piece away from sane, I wish any of my friends who see me as a rock of stability a lot of luck.
Okay, a question: In my experience most of these over-sharers are women. The men I know IRL have asked that I learn something about sports so they can talk to me about something to help pass the time. Is it true for you that men, outside of AA, do not share at all, much less to excess?
LOL..ah you are character. In the company of other women, over-sharing women are a myth, in the company of men however, they are legendary.
Men are thinkers generally and usually not led by emotions. That alone limits the depth of most conversations to sports, race cars, fishing or the weather. Prodding beyond the simplicity of thought into the complex realm of emotions will cause most men to put tail high into the air, jump fence and run like the wind.
sorry for not cutting and pasting, lazy but to address some of your other comments.
A Eunuch? why I would never suggest such a thing 
There just so many exchanges of information between you and the other person at so many levels that it is damn near impossible to narrow it down. The most blaring of course is when she announces her boyfriend is a jerk, what are you gonna do? act like the boyfriend? no, you become the nice guy, you almost have to but the ball has already been kicked into play before the jerk declaration. So…
I know this breaks all kinds of rules to answer a question with a question but humor me. Think real hard before you answer because the question has many levels to it. What is it about you that attracts the women you have described?
I honestly have no idea, but in for a penny, in for a pound. My shrink is a useless pill pusher (Note: Those pills help keep me alive and a source of regular prescription refills is vital, but he ain’t no Freud.) so I might as well do my talking cure here with strangers, some of whom I’ve “known” since 2000. And I hope you appreciate this, Napier, 'cuz I’m doing this for voyeurs like you. 
Except I’m not. I took a Trazadone a while ago and making even the limited sense I normally make is becoming a chore. And it wouldn’t be fair to Ms stoplight’s (gender assumption based on how you don’t talk like a guy) request that I give it some thought instead of my usual stream of consciousness. Nighty night!
I should have addressed your assumption earlier. Its Mr. stoplight.
I’m an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, covered with bacon or something. I’m cold and reserved (seriously, ask anyone) but I’m also a great listener, so people open up to me all the time. For friends and family, I hear them out, endlessly - it’s part of the job.
For potential mates, I tend to shut things down when it’s apparent they’re forgetting I’m a guy - work and family issues I’ll listen to all day, but grousing about boyfriends and discussing gynecological issues - hell, no. Seems harsh, but I learned early on that once I’m “one of the girls” there’s no coming back, so I don’t go there. I swear a couple of times that attitude has kept me a viable mate, weird as it seems.
For casual acquaintances, depends on the term of the relationship. Someone I’m seeing in a temporary social situation - bus or train ride, at a bar, party at a friend’s house - I tend to hear them out; what the heck, I find people interesting.
In a recurring situation like a co-worker or staff at some establishment I go to regularly, I make the boundaries more firm unless I see a potential friendship, as I’ll be dealing with them more often and things could get awkward.
My best friend of 20-some years hates this, btw. She’s seen me shut out people who clearly need someone to talk to and thinks it’s harsh that I’m not there for everyone like I am for my friends, but you just can’t do that for everyone you meet (she sure as hell doesn’t).
That’s great! I’m coming up on seventeen months myself. But whose counting?
I’ve found that if I ignore people, they eventually stop bothering me and go away.
Well, I do. It gives me a numerical response I can give with a hurt tone of voice when my wife asks, "What are you doing down there? Are you drinking? I saw the boss’ wife today for the “first” time. I’m not sure why she looks so familiar, but if anonymity was a rule there I’m not going to ask.
But that’s neither nice nor polite. Were you raised in a barn on a kibbutz?
A thousand pardons! I’m still thinking about your question.
You cut me to the quick! That’s not what I want!
One time, and this was an international phone call, I told my mother “Mom, you’ve already told me that. In this same call. Three times. And by the way, I already didn’t give a shit the first time.”
Her response: “I’m not telling you because I want you to know, I’m telling you because I need to tell someone!”
“Oh OK. I’m putting you on speakerphone then, say my name when you want me to pay attention again.”
They’re not telling you because they want you to know, they’re telling you because they think you’re someone who will listen to them and not babble to any common acquaintances.
I get used as an improptu confessor by… I think it’s by people who don’t find me to be anywhere near their attractiveness range. So lots of women, old men, young guys, little kids, but it is very rare from a guy my age (the few times it’s been a guy my age he was clearly not into short, guitar-shaped brunettes).
If my co-workers were to talk about race cars, especially race cars of the '60s, I’d be all over it. But “thinkers” they are not.
I do not prod. The point of this thread is that I don’t need to.
I don’t run fast and, as I suggested to Alessan, I was not raised in a barn on the family farm near Black River Falls, WI. In fact, my branch has been avoiding that farm for four generations. Others in the clan seem to have caught a clue, because I hear it’s for sale.
So what you’re suggesting is that some of them might have been encouraging my advances, but I was too dense to figure it out? As some of the ladies on this board would agree, it was far from the last time I was clueless about women. I don’t recall specific threads or topics, but I’m sure some of those women would be happy to link me and rub my nose in it.
There are rules about that? It’s my thread and the only rule I have is a simple request to keep it on topic, and I stomp all over that rule myself.
“Think?” “Levels?” You’ve obviously mistaken my for a person who is thoughtful and deep.
Er, nothing? I’ve never thought I was physically or personally attractive, but I had girlfriends before I got married and a wife who has no doubt rolled her eyes over my platonic infatuations, at least the ones she knows about (no, those others she only suspects ), for some 36 years, so I guess some women did. Can’t for the life of me figure out why. What might have happened was that some had tried to unload on other people and I was the sucker who said, “I’m sorry to hear that,” instead of changing the subject or running, screaming, from the room. On a club trip to Washington DC in high school I was told that word had gotten around that I was easy to talk to gave good advice. That’s the only time I heard that, and they were the last females who wanted my advice, but it explained why all the pretty, little freshmen and sophomores* sat down in turn to tell me all of their troubles. More recently, I suppose my being married makes me seem safe. Though there are still cases where a woman I barely know spills her guts, then is surprised, and I like to think disappointed, when I mention my wife. “You’re MARRIED?!?!?” can sound mighty sweet when you’re an old guy.
But other than that, I got bupkis. But I also have a friend (female, of course) whom I asked, “How do you write a book?”
“Write a page a day, and in a year you have a book.”
I’m writing an easy page a day, just in this thread. Now I just need to find a publisher.
-
- Except the one I wanted to talk to. She was a young 14-yr-old (I was freshly 17, so shut up) who went to Catholic schools at least until college. Or the convent. Her father was a county judge and officiated at my wedding. She did not attend. I like to think she wept silently in her cell (I also like to think she belonged to a silent order) over what she could have had if she had been at home when I came calling every Friday night for months after that trip. There was a bench on the boulevard in front of her house where I made my sole, “He’s a bum and you should go out with me,” move on the girl whose enthusiastic smile and chipmunk cheeks had caused me to join that club, the TeenAged RepublicanS :eek: in the first place. There are three ways all tales of manly stupidity begin, “Well, there was this girl,” “Well, I had been drinking,” and “Well, somebody dared me.” Sometimes all three. It’s like “Once upon a time” for true stories.
Oh, she wasn’t encouraging. She just wanted to gripe about her boyfriend. I can’t blame her. I owed the asshole a favor and he collected by making me hand out flyers for Nixon. In Chicago. My leaflets were treated like, and quickly became, litter.
One thing I love about this dump is that people talk like me. 
But what is a guitar if not a facsimile of a beautiful woman, with full, womanly hips, a swanlike neck, and strings that respond to the slightest touch?
Fifteen hundred views and nobody has insulted me? Where do the nonnies hang out these days?
I kinda sorta good naturedly belittled your plight. sigh
You did? That didn’t even qualify as manly trash talk! 
Wife still hasn’t a clue regarding the masculine art of talking trash to build group adhesion. She thinks it’s rude. Wimmins is crazy. As concessions to our female co-workers we also have to avoid swearing and even calling each other by our last names. It’s unnatural.
Your mother is so [insert adjective] that she [insert something really insulting]. 
Now I’ll just quietly wait in the corner for a mod to smite me.
If you had ever served your country as an enlisted man, you’d know that one can say the words “Sir”, “Mister”, and “Ma’am” as the foulest insults.
Uncle Sam didn’t get too insistent in his invitations to the festivities in SE Asia, so I got to miss them. But I spent enough of my youth in Virginia to consider myself a Virginian when it suits me–and talk like one when I’m not careful–to know how to play the Polite Insults game.