I have a problem with my friends. They seem to think that they can call me every time they are bored. Which apparently for a select number means every fucking day. They call me on their way home from work, on their way to the gas station, while in the grocery store, while eating lunch and I wouldn’t put it past one of them to call me while she was getting laid:rolleyes:
To make it clear what I am going through, I will briefly detail today’s version.
Me: Hello?
Her: Hey! What are you doing?
Me: Not leaving my house
Her: I am driving home
Me:
Her: I took my horse back to the barn
Me: safe and sound?
Her: yep
Her: I am getting gas
Her: Are you coming out here tonight?
Me: Nope staying in my house
Her: What grade of gas should I get?
Her: midrange I guess
And it goes on until I can manage to get off the phone without being tooooooo rude. I believe my exit line was “let me get back to doing nothing”
What the fuck!!! Why does she think I give a rat’s ass about putting gas in her fucking car. I put 600 miles a week on my car at a minimum, gas is not a topic of discussion for me. What her other friends, most of whom I don’t know, are doing for the weekend is of no interest to me. I don’t care that her co-worker broke up with her cheating boyfriend. And I most certainly do not want to hear anymore about the married, embezzling asshole that she continues to associate with despite the fact that she has been supoenaed in the case. On this last topic, the only response I give her anymore is “you know what I am going to say, so why are you telling me this again?” and yet she STILL tells me.
And it isn’t just her! I have other friends that do this too. I am not chatty when they call. I barely contribute to the conversation and when I do, it is generally grunts, “oh really”, and “it builds character”.
I have tried valid complaints about burning my cell minutes. They apologize and then call back the next day, still with nothing to say.
Ahh the not answering technique. It has also been exercised, but that makes it worse. She’ll call back several times that day until I answer. And sometimes she actually has a reason to call… I keep hoping that is why she is calling… I am rarely right. I should learn from that… :rolleyes:
They are my friends, because they know and accept that I don’t like to talk on the phone.
Phones are for ordering pizza, arranging face-to-face meetings, and talking with people who live far enough away that going there to see them would be unfeasible.
If one of my friends has something to say, they call me up and say, “You busy?” and then, if we’re good to go, they show up and we TALK.
This is why some people are my friends, and some people think I’m an asshole, I guess…
Friend A calls all the time, when driving to/from work. (1 hour drive each way). Friend A is bored, and calls to pass the time. Problem is, I am at home, in Brutus’ Pleasure Palace, enjoying the fruits of my labor. Big TV. Computer(s). Guns. Fine dining, courtesy of Château Blanc. I have no desire to try to try to make some conversation because someone else is bored.
This friend owns a cell phone, right? See, I’ve always suspected that the quality of most telephone conversations would fall to absolute zero once cell phones became popular.
Now, so many people reach out and touch someone instead of being alone with their thoughts. Sort of like my mom who has the tv on every minute of every day in order to never be alone with herself.
When you’re talking to one of your boring friends, tell them that you have to go because one of your other boring friends is calling on the other line.
Do you have voice mail? Just never pick the phone up when she calls. Ever. Let all of her calls drop into voice mail. If it’s actually important, she’ll leave a message. More importantly, if you never pick up, she might stop with the pointlss calls.
Of course, that is the passive-aggressive approach. You could always drop the “passive” part and just tell her, point blank, to stop calling you for no reason other than that she’s bored, because you have better things to do than to keep her entertained.
Assuming you don’t actually want to just tell her frankly that you’re not interested in just chatting, and that she should only call you when she has something of significance to say, you can just politely request her to get to the point. “Hi, Bob. I’m afraid I don’t have time to chat today, is there something you need to tell me before I let you go?” would, I think, work fine for most reasonable people.
When I was a teenager I loved to chat on the phone about nothing in particular. Now that I am an old grumposaurus, I feel the phone should be used as an instrument of brief, purposeful, to-the-point communication.
Have you ever overheard a cellphone conversation? They are, without exception, boring and not worth eavesdropping on.
Yesterday in the grocery store, at least, I heard an old man having a useful conversation on his cellphone. He was asking someone exactly which type of coffee he should buy. Now there’s a conversation worth having. Mostly, it’s “[ring] Hello? Oh, nothing, what are you doing? Yeah I know. Oh, I don’t know. What? Oh, nothing. Hang on, I’m going through a tunnel.”
(I have one reclusive friend who leaves his ringer off as a rule. Every so often if he happens to be walking by the phone and has some time, he’ll pick it up and say “Hello?” just in case. Otherwise you have to page him and if he feels like it he’ll call you back.)
