Exchanges with People that Make Your Brain Hurt

[VorFemme]

I broke my friend's brain the other day. I was griping about movies I personally find sappy and tedious, like The Notebook and The English Patient. Then Florence and the Machine came up on my iPhone and I started waxing poetic about her songs (which are all about death and/or soulmates) and basically crying over one of them, going "AHHH IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL" and going on and on about the lyrics. My friend just turned to me and said "It's like you're two different people inside. I don't even understand you."

There's a difference between sappy tedious movies clinically constructed by committee with a paint-by-numbers formula to evoke an emotional reaction based on pushing the same set of buttons on what "generic sensitive female" will find "touching", and the gloriousness that is Florence (it feels so much more personal, genuine and strikingly original with her music).
 
(Yes I also HATE HATE HATE movies like the Notebook and English Patient and I also LOVE LOVE LOVE Florence).

That's very true. I wasn't able to explain it that well though. The best I could come up with was to say that movies "ruin" the magic of what you could feel by filling in the entirety of the story. With Florence there are no visuals to ruin things, it's just her glorious voice. (And the occasional cool music video.) It does feel more personal with music than it does with movies.

Same reason that I prefer "romance" to "erotica" - I fill in the vague mention of what's going on with what I would find "the most romantic whatever" at that time in my life.  My sixteen year old self, my newly wed self, my older & pregnant self, my thirty years old with a kid self, and my menopausal self had some of the same ideas (kissing & hugging) and some different ideas (sixteen year old didn't think having a foot rub would be at all romantic, then my pregnant self had swollen aching feet and realized that a foot rub could feel really, really good - even if it put you to sleep NOW you might wake up feeling "romantic" in the middle of the night - and believe me, pregnant women wake up in the middle of the night anyway....).

[mandycorn]

I have one from work yesterday. I answer phones for part of the day and many of these calls are requests to make appointments with our providers. Usually, to make things go a little faster I will ask "Is there a particular day of the week you'd like an appointment, or would you just like Provider's next available opening?" Usually this prompts people to provide me with even more information that makes it easier and faster for me to find them an appointment. For example, many times people will respond "Oh, just the next available opening after 2 p.m." or "Any day except Tuesdays." Sometimes it doesn't, and people just respond "Oh, the next available opening, please." and then reject the first five appointments I offer them because of conflicts. This is fine too, I understand that sometimes you don't remember everything you have planned, or you don't expect me to only offer you appointments that won't work with your schedule. Eventually, we find something that works for everyone.

Yesterday I had a woman call and request to make an appointment with her provider.

To save me typing it every time, read all of her comments in the snottiest tone you can imagine. 
Me: Is there a particular day you'd like to schedule for, or would you just like his next available appointment?
Her: What is his NEXT appointment, please?
Me: His next opening is on Wednesday at 10.
Her: And the NEXT one?
Me: He has an opening on Thursday at 11.
Her: [Big sigh] And after THAT?
Me: His last opening this week is on Friday at 10.
Her: Okay, well you're just inching along. WHAT does he HAVE in the next couple of WEEKS?
Me: [Lists off several available openings over the next two weeks]
Her: Look, I'm trying to make an appointment. WHAT would you SUGGEST I do?
Me:  Well, if you can tell me a day and time that will work for you, I can see if he has an opening around then.
Her: Never mind. I'm going to hang up and do this a different way.

I still have NO IDEA what I was doing wrong!

I don't know what she wanted you to do differently, sounds like you were doing the normal thing. Mostly I just wanted to say that in general I absolutely hate that this is the way everybody has to make appointments.

I never know what to ask for or how to get them to tell me what is available and then I never know how much of my availability to share without going overboard into crazy-oversharer territory. In a perfect world, everybody's appointment calendar would be available online so I could look and see what works with my schedule and then call to request a specific slot.

[snowflake]

I broke my friend's brain the other day. I was griping about movies I personally find sappy and tedious, like The Notebook and The English Patient. Then Florence and the Machine came up on my iPhone and I started waxing poetic about her songs (which are all about death and/or soulmates) and basically crying over one of them, going "AHHH IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL" and going on and on about the lyrics. My friend just turned to me and said "It's like you're two different people inside. I don't even understand you."

There's a difference between sappy tedious movies clinically constructed by committee with a paint-by-numbers formula to evoke an emotional reaction based on pushing the same set of buttons on what "generic sensitive female" will find "touching", and the gloriousness that is Florence (it feels so much more personal, genuine and strikingly original with her music).
 
(Yes I also HATE HATE HATE movies like the Notebook and English Patient and I also LOVE LOVE LOVE Florence).

That's very true. I wasn't able to explain it that well though. The best I could come up with was to say that movies "ruin" the magic of what you could feel by filling in the entirety of the story. With Florence there are no visuals to ruin things, it's just her glorious voice. (And the occasional cool music video.) It does feel more personal with music than it does with movies.

Same reason that I prefer "romance" to "erotica" - I fill in the vague mention of what's going on with what I would find "the most romantic whatever" at that time in my life.  My sixteen year old self, my newly wed self, my older & pregnant self, my thirty years old with a kid self, and my menopausal self had some of the same ideas (kissing & hugging) and some different ideas (sixteen year old didn't think having a foot rub would be at all romantic, then my pregnant self had swollen aching feet and realized that a foot rub could feel really, really good - even if it put you to sleep NOW you might wake up feeling "romantic" in the middle of the night - and believe me, pregnant women wake up in the middle of the night anyway....).

Must agree here.  I know it seems to make people's brains hurt that I (happily married for well over a decade) am such a grinch about The Notebook, Twilight, 50 Shades, etc.  Most people assume I can't be successful in love without buying into the romance thing whole hog.  Seriously, I have a husband who rubs my feet and tells me to rant about my day and I do the same for him.  I don't see why that means I should go weak in the knees over the idea of some brute ravishing me saying, "You ARE MINE!"

I mean, I'm 40 now.  I've had literally hundreds of friends and co-workers who have talked intimately about their relationships in front of me.  I've sat and listened to women after they've had the tar beaten out of them.  I've come to the conclusion that mass-media romance is about a fantasy that you can act immature, rude, selfish and still have someone love you enough to put up with it.  I have many friends/relatives/clients who feel victimized because their partners have left them once they had enough.  Soooooooo, it's just impossible for me to take the majority of romance stories with any kind of enthusiasm.

Which is too bad because I love a good love story. 

P.S.: I also despise Nicholas Sparks and adore Florence.

[Slartibartfast]

Hey all, let's please not start bashing on romance novels here!  I write romance, many of my author friends write romance, and it comes in as many flavors and heat levels as any other type of fiction does.  I'm not saying rape (or "rapemance" as it's sometimes pejoratively called) doesn't still figure into some stories, but saying all romance is about brutes ravishing young ingenues is like saying all rock music is about drugs and sex.  If explicit sex scenes aren't your cup of tea, fine, but a) that doesn't mean they have no value to anyone else, and b) they don't characterize the genre as a whole.

(Disclaimer: yes, I read erotica sometimes, yes, I write erotic romance (not the same thing) with explicit sex scenes, and yes, I do read "sweet" romances as well.)

[cabbagegirl28]

So I finally saw The Dark Knight Rises this weekend! My school was doing a weekend full of "study break" type of things, and this was one of them.

I was walking back to my dorm, and I heard the following exchange:

Girl 1: I didn't know there were girls in that movie.
Girl 2: That's kinda the whole point.

I couldn't believe that someone missed all the trailers and promos, which had Anne Hathaway and some quick shots of Marion Cotillard. Also, both women play a pretty significant role in the movie. Just, ow.

[StuffedGrapeLeaves]

I had a similar conversation with my MIL about our car right after our youngest child was born.

Prior to YDD's birth, any time my little 3 person family and the ILs went out somewhere, we'd just take one car.  But YDD's birth changed that, as our 5-seater car now had 4 of those 5 seats occupied.  MIL complained bitterly about what a "horrible situation" (yes, she used those exact words.) the whole thing was.  Our car seats were too big.  Our backseat was too small.  Blah blah blah.  She still complains about it, some 5 years later.

Here's where my brain hurts and she just can't understand.  Even if our car seats weren't behemoths* and our car had a roomier backseat, we still only have 5 seats and 6 people.  I'm not sure what she wants us to do about it, other than go out and buy a minivan.  Which we aren't going to do.

*and we've graduated to boosters, which take up much less room.  Guess what!  Still only 5 seats...

If we have a second child, I can see this conversation happening with my MIL.  Before DS was born, she always insisted that we come over to the ILs' house first, and then FIL, MIL, DH, and I will travel together in one car, even if it would be closer to us to just head directly to the place/restaurant.  After DS was born, she switched to insisting that we still go over to their house first, then we take our car because it has the car seat in it.  I bet if we have a second child, somehow she'll find a way to try to insist that we take one car even though there won't be enough seats. 

[MrTango]

I had a similar conversation with my MIL about our car right after our youngest child was born.

Prior to YDD's birth, any time my little 3 person family and the ILs went out somewhere, we'd just take one car.  But YDD's birth changed that, as our 5-seater car now had 4 of those 5 seats occupied.  MIL complained bitterly about what a "horrible situation" (yes, she used those exact words.) the whole thing was.  Our car seats were too big.  Our backseat was too small.  Blah blah blah.  She still complains about it, some 5 years later.

Here's where my brain hurts and she just can't understand.  Even if our car seats weren't behemoths* and our car had a roomier backseat, we still only have 5 seats and 6 people.  I'm not sure what she wants us to do about it, other than go out and buy a minivan.  Which we aren't going to do.

*and we've graduated to boosters, which take up much less room.  Guess what!  Still only 5 seats...

If we have a second child, I can see this conversation happening with my MIL.  Before DS was born, she always insisted that we come over to the ILs' house first, and then FIL, MIL, DH, and I will travel together in one car, even if it would be closer to us to just head directly to the place/restaurant.  After DS was born, she switched to insisting that we still go over to their house first, then we take our car because it has the car seat in it.  I bet if we have a second child, somehow she'll find a way to try to insist that we take one car even though there won't be enough seats.

This sounds like a textbook opportunity for "Sorry, but that won't work for us." (Repeat verbatim as necessary until she gives up).

[StuffedGrapeLeaves]

I had a similar conversation with my MIL about our car right after our youngest child was born.

Prior to YDD's birth, any time my little 3 person family and the ILs went out somewhere, we'd just take one car.  But YDD's birth changed that, as our 5-seater car now had 4 of those 5 seats occupied.  MIL complained bitterly about what a "horrible situation" (yes, she used those exact words.) the whole thing was.  Our car seats were too big.  Our backseat was too small.  Blah blah blah.  She still complains about it, some 5 years later.

Here's where my brain hurts and she just can't understand.  Even if our car seats weren't behemoths* and our car had a roomier backseat, we still only have 5 seats and 6 people.  I'm not sure what she wants us to do about it, other than go out and buy a minivan.  Which we aren't going to do.

*and we've graduated to boosters, which take up much less room.  Guess what!  Still only 5 seats...

If we have a second child, I can see this conversation happening with my MIL.  Before DS was born, she always insisted that we come over to the ILs' house first, and then FIL, MIL, DH, and I will travel together in one car, even if it would be closer to us to just head directly to the place/restaurant.  After DS was born, she switched to insisting that we still go over to their house first, then we take our car because it has the car seat in it.  I bet if we have a second child, somehow she'll find a way to try to insist that we take one car even though there won't be enough seats.

This sounds like a textbook opportunity for "Sorry, but that won't work for us." (Repeat verbatim as necessary until she gives up).

Oh, we do that now.  We only take one car if we're already at their house before going somewhere, and we plan on going back to their house.  It's just exhausting to constantly tell her no.  I don't understand why she thinks taking two cars is so horrible, and she never articulated any practical reason.  Then again, this is just the tip of the iceberg of her controlling nature.

[Kimblee]

That reminds me of when I first met my then-boyfriend, now-husband's sister.  She was talking about some family members, and she referred to them as "Annie Bell", "Annie Bev", "Annie Carol", etc. 

Later, I said to Mr.S "Gee, your family has a lot of Annies.  Is it a family name?"  He began to laugh, saying "Nope - that's Rhonda's way of pronouncing "Auntie"."

(For the record, Rhonda wasn't a little kid - she was in her twenties.  I guess she'd always pronounced "Auntie" that way and never got out of the habit.)

lol

My mother was Auntie to everyone, wether they were her niece/nephew or not. (well, except to me, to me she was Mama.)

Except instead of "AUGHNT-ee" it was "AY-nee" (Like the fonz "ay")

Which is why to this day the correct pronunciation sounds all wrong.

[Adelaide]

I had (yet another) exchange with the girl who lives in the apartment above me. She bangs around at all hours of the night. We're talking thuds that rattle the ceiling fan and shake the walls. Even my fish can feel these thuds, and he writhes around in his fishbowl. It seems like she's stomping around and dropping furniture. We've had a few (civil) discussions about it, but she vacillates from "I'm not doing anything at all and half the time I'm not even there" to "I'm not doing anything loud/unreasonable".  I've taken to hitting the ceiling above me with the handle of a broom like some sort of cantankerous old lady. Last night at 3 a.m. I was jolted awake by one of the loudest thuds I've heard and I promptly hit the ceiling with a few taps of the broom. The first time I started she said that it was a good "gauge" for if she was being loud or not and then last night she changed her tune again. (Bear in mind, the following conversation happened in very neutral tones, but it was still mind-boggling.

Her: "So, I've noticed that you've started hitting the ceiling again...."
Me: "Yes."
Her: "Well, it's actually starting to bother me, so"-
Me: "Being jolted up at 3 a.m. bothers me, so I hit the ceiling."
Her: "Right, but I was about to go to bed. I noticed immediately after I moved my chair you started banging on the ceiling and the noise is bothering me."
Me: "Right. I was just hitting the ceiling right where the noises were coming from."
Her: "Well, I double checked the blueprints and the only thing right above your apartment is my apartment and I wasn't doing anything loud."
Me: "Oh, I see. Well, I was hitting the exact spot where the noises were happening, which is right above my ceiling fan."
Her: "I'm not doing anything unreasonable. You know, you might want to consider moving out of the apartments..."
Me: "Let me put it this way. I sleep in earplugs. I sleep with the fan on. I sleep with a white noise machine on at full volume. There is something that has been waking me up. It is loud enough, vibrates the ceiling fan enough, and lasts long enough that I can pinpoint its exact location, and that is the spot I am hitting. I will continue to hit it until the noise goes away."
Her: "Well, it might be the guy beside me. I mean, I've had noise complaints called on me before so I don't do loud stuff anymore."
Me: "All I know is that I'm hitting the exact spot where the noise and vibrations are coming from."
Her: "But that's my apartment."
Me: "...okay I'll just talk to the manager tomorrow."

[Shalamar]

Geez, Adelaide, now MY brain hurts.    She sounds like she's being deliberately obtuse.

StuffedGrapeLeaves, my mother-in-law is controlling as can be, too.  Her daughters just fall in line, as did both her sons until her elder son met and married me.  I'm stubborn to a fault, and whereas I'll take a certain amount of being pushed around, I have my limits.

MIL is very fond of making plans for other people and expecting them to fall in line.  One Christmas Day during dinner, she announced that she was going to host Boxing Day dinner, and she expected the entire family to be there.  My husband and I didn't want to go (our attitude was "We just saw you on Christmas Day.  What the heck are we going to talk about less than 24 hours later?").  So, I piped up and said "I'm sorry; we won't be able to make it.  We already have plans."  She spat "WHAT plans?"   I looked her straight in the eye and said "Sleeping in, shopping the sales, then coming home and eating Chinese food in our pyjamas."

Well, she DID ask.   

[Adelaide]

Geez, Adelaide, now MY brain hurts.    She sounds like she's being deliberately obtuse.

I think she is. But she puts on this slow, explanatory tone that makes my skin crawl. It's like she thinks she's explaining something very simple to a toddler. I'm sure she doesn't actually believe herself, but she comes across like she does and like I'm a simpleton.

[ica171]

Geez, Adelaide, now MY brain hurts.    She sounds like she's being deliberately obtuse.

I think she is. But she puts on this slow, explanatory tone that makes my skin crawl. It's like she thinks she's explaining something very simple to a toddler. I'm sure she doesn't actually believe herself, but she comes across like she does and like I'm a simpleton.

She's probably hoping that if she gaslights you enough you'll just assume it's you and not her and stop complaining.

[Carotte]

@StuffedGrapeLeaves:
Is she usually OK with driving in any other situation? My grandparents are now reluctant to drive to my aunt's place (the closest relative they have, almost in the same city) because neither of them feel comfortable driving at night, or in the rain, or in the snow.. anymore - they just never said it like that at first so we didn't understand why they wouldn't visit anymore. Maybe something to consider.

@Adelaide: How about filming yourself/ your room during the night to have a proof? Either just for noisy-girl so that she finally realise what she's doing, or just to have documentation/proof if you need to file a complaint.

[Adelaide]

I have filed complaints, which presents another brain-hurty situation itself. See, an employee of the building has to hear the noise before they'll file a complaint. So if the noise lasts all of 30 seconds and an employee comes in and doesn't hear anything...no dice. I've tried filming it but a) it's so sporadic that I can't get a camera up in time and b) my iPhone camera isn't that great quality. It's more of the fact that it's a thudding/thumping that rattles things than the actual volume.