I shall start by saying that I realise that I do "go on a bit" on here and what I say could be viewed as being quite rich , BUT I am aware that something written on a forum such as this gives a person a choice to skim read, or not read at all. In person it's all very different being trapped in a room with somebody who's droning on about a subject in which you have little or zero interest in, is going into far more detail than is necessary, is speaking with the speed of a Gatling gun or in extremely slow monotones.
My house guest - A guy I met through a friend at my 80's festival, lovely guy, friendly, generous, totally into his music, enthusiastic and despite him no longer being in touch with my friend, we've remained in touch and still go to the festival together with another friend of mine who's also become good friends with him. We usually try and meet up before the festival and he stays at ours as we have a spare room. The biggest problem with him is that he does love the sound of his own voice and does speak extremely slowly and is a fan of the dramatic pause. Quite often one will mistakenly think that he's finished speaking and try and get a word in, and he'll put his finger up and say "ah" or "but wait" and then carry on speaking. He loves to talk about cooking for example and will describe a recipe that he's made and his description is probably as long as it takes to actually produce the dish. My oh tolerates his company but has nothing in common with him, so he's usually quite happy when we take him out somewhere for the day or evening. This time around we noted that he is getting worse. He arrived, dropped off his case in the spare room. We offered him a coffee and began the usual small talk as in "how was the journey" "what've you been up to?" Then he started, he opened up the photos on his phone and showed us a pic of a small scrap of paper with some plans (building dimensions) written on it I said ok what's that? He went on to say that he'd ripped out his old kitchen and built a new one from scratch. Now anyone with an ounce of awareness would have said "Yeah I ripped out my old kitchen and installed a new one" I'm pretty proud of myself then would perhaps show a couple of before/after shots. This would invite questions and praise and the conversation would peter out within 5 minutes or so. Hell no! Not only did we get pictures of rubble sacks and basically what was hour by hour progress, throughout the visit he showed literally everybody we came into contact with over the few days he stayed!
Our mutual friend who did us the barbecue on the Sunday has a mildly autistic daughter and very autistic son who is very unsociable and spends most of his waking hours in his room playing video games, on this occasion he came down into the garden to join us. He showed the plans to our mate in the same detail that he afforded to myself and oh, got into a deep conversation with mates daughter about music and that seemed to be going well. We started taking plates inside and as it'd turned a bit chilly we said lets go inside. He said I'll just have a ciggie and I'll be in a bit. Daughter and son stayed at the table with him. About 10 minutes later, my mates son came screaming into the front room literally tearing his hair saying "shut up shut up shut up" Does that guy ever shut up, does he ever get to the f'ing point? Poor lad was in sensory overload and had to go upstairs and lie down! Few minutes later the daughter followed and muttered "sorry, but I'm done!" I said to my mate look I'll take him home, she said you don't have to go, I said I think I'd better to save everybody's sanity!
I told him we were going as son was feeling unwell - He struck up a conversation with a random on the bus - I could see him reaching for his phone, but thankfully our stop was approaching by then and we had to get off! I cannot believe the lack of self awareness. I still like him but he is getting worse and maybe next years meet up will have to be on neutral territory! We can't stay at his because he rents a room from a mate. Must be nice for his mate to have someone who can rebuild your kitchen though!
My house guest - A guy I met through a friend at my 80's festival, lovely guy, friendly, generous, totally into his music, enthusiastic and despite him no longer being in touch with my friend, we've remained in touch and still go to the festival together with another friend of mine who's also become good friends with him. We usually try and meet up before the festival and he stays at ours as we have a spare room. The biggest problem with him is that he does love the sound of his own voice and does speak extremely slowly and is a fan of the dramatic pause. Quite often one will mistakenly think that he's finished speaking and try and get a word in, and he'll put his finger up and say "ah" or "but wait" and then carry on speaking. He loves to talk about cooking for example and will describe a recipe that he's made and his description is probably as long as it takes to actually produce the dish. My oh tolerates his company but has nothing in common with him, so he's usually quite happy when we take him out somewhere for the day or evening. This time around we noted that he is getting worse. He arrived, dropped off his case in the spare room. We offered him a coffee and began the usual small talk as in "how was the journey" "what've you been up to?" Then he started, he opened up the photos on his phone and showed us a pic of a small scrap of paper with some plans (building dimensions) written on it I said ok what's that? He went on to say that he'd ripped out his old kitchen and built a new one from scratch. Now anyone with an ounce of awareness would have said "Yeah I ripped out my old kitchen and installed a new one" I'm pretty proud of myself then would perhaps show a couple of before/after shots. This would invite questions and praise and the conversation would peter out within 5 minutes or so. Hell no! Not only did we get pictures of rubble sacks and basically what was hour by hour progress, throughout the visit he showed literally everybody we came into contact with over the few days he stayed!
Our mutual friend who did us the barbecue on the Sunday has a mildly autistic daughter and very autistic son who is very unsociable and spends most of his waking hours in his room playing video games, on this occasion he came down into the garden to join us. He showed the plans to our mate in the same detail that he afforded to myself and oh, got into a deep conversation with mates daughter about music and that seemed to be going well. We started taking plates inside and as it'd turned a bit chilly we said lets go inside. He said I'll just have a ciggie and I'll be in a bit. Daughter and son stayed at the table with him. About 10 minutes later, my mates son came screaming into the front room literally tearing his hair saying "shut up shut up shut up" Does that guy ever shut up, does he ever get to the f'ing point? Poor lad was in sensory overload and had to go upstairs and lie down! Few minutes later the daughter followed and muttered "sorry, but I'm done!" I said to my mate look I'll take him home, she said you don't have to go, I said I think I'd better to save everybody's sanity!
I told him we were going as son was feeling unwell - He struck up a conversation with a random on the bus - I could see him reaching for his phone, but thankfully our stop was approaching by then and we had to get off! I cannot believe the lack of self awareness. I still like him but he is getting worse and maybe next years meet up will have to be on neutral territory! We can't stay at his because he rents a room from a mate. Must be nice for his mate to have someone who can rebuild your kitchen though!
