# Where were you when stories
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-stories/509683
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [September 11, 2009, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-stories/509683 "2009-09-11T13:37:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2009, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-stories/509683/61 "2009-09-11T22:42:26Z")
My wife thinks this is just one of those things many people feel, but most people know better than to say in public. She was mortified I’d posted it here, but relieved I didn’t do it on Facebook.
So I guess I learned a valuable lesson. One that I am sure I’ll have to learn again several times.
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### Author:  [@DudleyGarrett](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DudleyGarrett)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2009, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-stories/509683/62 "2009-09-11T22:44:58Z")
> [@Jodi](#):
>
> No, but it’s stupid of you to expect everyone to agree with you. You’ve made your point, and I for one assume it’s a valid one for you, but you’re hardly in a position to insist everyone else must share it. Clearly a lot of people disagree with you, and they are as entitled to post their opinion as you are yours. So you may “guarantee” that people “all over the country” are also sick of these stories, but I in turn guarantee that people all over the country are NOT sick of these stories. And – surprise! – we’re probably both right.
>
> I find them very interesting myself. I am interested in how varied our individual personal experiences were as we simulatenously experienced the same thing collectively. I am especially interested in hearing how the events were experience by those in other countries. So our mileage varies. So what?
Well said.
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### Author:  [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2009, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-stories/509683/63 "2009-09-11T22:47:40Z")
I’d like Jodi to link back to the part where I insisted everyone else must share my POV, or where I said anyone was less entitled to their opinion. It’s quite evident the opinion that is socially unacceptable is my own. I’m the one who’s been chastened, called names, and had all kind of conjecture about my mental and emotional health expressed.
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### Author:  [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2009, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-stories/509683/64 "2009-09-11T22:58:17Z")
With all due respect, if you’re not in the mood for those stories, don’t open the thread.
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### Author:  [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2009, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-stories/509683/65 "2009-09-11T23:05:40Z")
> [@cricetus](#):
>
> You seem to be under the mistaken notion that this thread is entirely about this board. It isn’t. I’m talking about water cooler/FB/twitter chatter. Here I can avoid the stuff I don’t care to hear or read.
The first of three or four posts to this effect. Thanks for reading before you respond.
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### Author:  [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2009, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-stories/509683/66 "2009-09-11T23:06:47Z")
Well, this isn’t going to help: [I've Got My 9/11 Story. What's Yours? | HuffPost Latest News](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-rosenbaum/ive-got-my-911-story-what_b_282375.html)
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### Author:  [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2009, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-stories/509683/67 "2009-09-11T23:36:14Z")
Today of all days is a day to pause and reflect and remember. If someone brought up the OMG Where Were You When the Towers Fell on October 17, for instance, it would be a bit out of sync. But I can’t write 9/11 without getting a little twist of a flashback. That date will never be normal again. We all have dates of meaning to us, birthdays, anniversaries. Then there are historical dates, July 4, December 7. I don’t think it’s out of the norm to reflect on the significance of those days when they roll around.
Cheer up, **cricetus** …by tomorrow everyone will be back to their old selves.
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### Author:  [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2009, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-stories/509683/68 "2009-09-11T23:45:54Z")
Lovely. All day I’ll have to listen to people’s stories about where they were when they found out about the Cathar Crusade.
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### Author:  [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2009, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-stories/509683/69 "2009-09-11T23:55:33Z")
> [@cricetus](#):
>
> Wow, I’m sorry I upset you so much, but I can solace myself somewhat with the knowledge that I didn’t say anything like that.
“Who me??”
Like hell you didn’t.
> [@cricetus](#):
>
> People who were in NYC, or have strong connections there? Absolutely they can tell their stories and sob on each other’s shoulders. Otherwise: stfu and let them have their day of remembrance.
You may not have used the word “right”, but you did tell people who are talking about it to shut the fuck up.
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### Author:  [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2009, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-stories/509683/70 "2009-09-12T00:04:59Z")
That was a rhetorical flair aimed at imaginary people, not at specific people who’d argued with me. It’s not like I actually took a cudgel to someone.
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### Author:  [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2009, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-stories/509683/71 "2009-09-12T00:08:26Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
>
> I agree with the OP, and I don’t see why it’s even controversial. These stories are _never_ interesting, and they’re not even very different from each other. It’s just a way for people to turn it into a story about themselves. Really, you were at work and then sombody told you about it, and then you couldn’t believe it? What a fascinating person you are.
I think I’ll be able to sleep at night knowing that you have found at least one, and possibly more, of my posts to be “not fascinating.” Further, your statement should read, “These stories are never interesting…to me,” because like I said before, I like reading them and I find them interesting. So you don’t. Fine. Who cares? Like you said, there’s no controversy here. Avoid talk radio on 9/11, turn off the TV if they show a memorial event, and don’t open threads that have 9/11 in the title. This should take about 30 total seconds of effort or less. Problem solved.
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### Author:  [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2009, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-stories/509683/72 "2009-09-12T00:11:27Z")
> [@cricetus](#):
>
> That was a rhetorical flair aimed at imaginary people, not at specific people who’d argued with me.
It was a hypothetical that applied to a lot of people.
> [@](#):
>
> It’s not like I actually took a cudgel to someone.
I can solace myself somewhat with the knowledge that I didn’t say anything like that.
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### Author:  [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2009, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-stories/509683/73 "2009-09-12T00:18:42Z")
I assume that I have probably not fascinated people lots of times. I have probably even bored them to tatters. That doesn’t make me a bad person, but I do generally try not to be tedious company. :insert inevitable joke here about how I’m being tedious now:
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### Author:  [@Mahna\_Mahna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahna_Mahna)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2009, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-stories/509683/74 "2009-09-12T03:03:04Z")
The truth is, most of us are incredibly boring and will never live through the kind of experiences that newspaper headlines are made of. There’s a good chance that what few memorable and life-changing moments we have in our lives will be awfully boring to everyone but ourselves and possibly a handful of close friends and family.
Then again, the world would be an awfully quiet place if all we were ever allowed to talk about was that one momentous event in our life that everyone is guaranteed to find utterly fascinating, don’t you think? Even then, someone would probably still manage to complain about how boring and mundane that was in comparison to someone else’s story about that same event… because no one’s interesting to everyone all the time.
(Also, in that alternate universe where no one is allowed to talk about anything that could potentially be boring, Twitter and Facebook and Livejournal would all cease to exist in a simultaneous implosion of empathy… as would the cell phone bills of a billion teenage girls)
Human beings are inherently self-centered. As is this OP, for that matter.
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### Author:  [@enomaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enomaj)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2009, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-stories/509683/75 "2009-09-12T04:21:56Z")
I went to a strip club on 9/11. I wasn’t in New York.
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### Author:  [@Francesca](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francesca)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2009, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-stories/509683/76 "2009-09-12T10:16:09Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#):
>
> Didn’t see this before posting.
>
> The difference between attention whore and community member is in your point of view, not the sharers. My narrative is no more less interesting, important, valid or useful than that of thousands of others. It is but one voice. First person narratives are much more useful, IMHO, than third person analysis weeks after the fact.
I didn’t say people who talk about what they were doing on 9/11 are attention whores. I said they’re talking about themselves, and that most people love to do so. It’s not so much “look at me” as “here is what **I** was doing/thought”. When given a chance, people will always talk about where they were/what they were doing, because then they get to place themselves at the centre of the narrative.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing, just a human thing. It doesn’t mean any one person’s account is any more valid or not that anyone else’s. It just means we love to talk about ourselves.
And I would disagree with you that thousands of other people’s accounts are just as important as your own. Unless you’re talking about the others who were there alongside you, I’d say that the account of those who weren’t directly involved are not as important as the ones who were. They can be interesting, sure, sometimes, but they’re not as historically important as yours and those others who were there.
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### Author:  [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2009, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-stories/509683/77 "2009-09-12T11:41:17Z")
> [@cricetus](#):
>
> I guess it was stupid of me to merely be honest about something.
Don’t worry, it took me ages to work out there are certain subjects on this Board that you may not A) Be honest about or B) Have a dissenting opinion on.
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### Author:  [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2009, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-stories/509683/78 "2009-09-12T14:18:45Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#):
>
> Don’t worry, it took me ages to work out there are certain subjects on this Board that you may not A) Be honest about or B) Have a dissenting opinion on.
This is just silly. If you espouse an opinion and a majority happens to disagree, all it means is that _most of those people disagree with you_. No need to be a martyr about it.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2009, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-stories/509683/79 "2009-09-12T18:23:03Z")
I remember where I was when I saw the first thread complaining about 9/11 remembrance threads…
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### Author:  [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2009, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-stories/509683/80 "2009-09-12T18:35:06Z")
> [@enomaj](#):
>
> I went to a strip club on 9/11. I wasn’t in New York.
That’s interesting.
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