One more area in which I am an outlier is social discussions about improving houses. Most of my friends like to discuss countertops, landscaping, porches, paint colors, workmen, and additions. I don't dislike them. I don't go seeking the exits when such things come up. I even find things to contribute here and there. Yet it is always a surprise to me, because I have not been thinking about such things myself since the last time I saw them. They have little hold on me.
The exception is when I am persecuted by a current project, such as now, painting the house and trying not to rehearse tomorrow's work all night tonight. Some guys will say they aren't happy unless they have some project or other around the house to occupy them. Myself, I'm not happy unless my projects are all caught up.
What does actively bore me is old guys talking about old cars, with few exceptions. If I am in the presence of a guy my age or thereabouts and there is a 1966 Buick or some such within view, the odds are unfortunately high that he will want to go on at length about some Buick that he owned fifty years ago, including details of no importance to me. I have some interest in the various VWs, as I owned a few, but even for that I can keep a conversation going for maybe ten minutes before I am eyeing the exits. This is a topic of fascination to many men, the cars they used to own and the details about them. Anecdotes about adventures with these cars are often exchanged: when they wouldn't start, what they were like on bad roads, how long they lasted beyond their expected lifespans.
If you feel like talking about 70's guitar solos, I'm all ears...
ReplyDeleteSo, you really don't want to hear about all they great cars I've had? It's not just guys.
ReplyDeleteOh, brother. Most guy talk bores me within 10 minutes, and my store of automotive wisdom or interest is minute--samesame with sports, I realized pretty early.
ReplyDeleteAVI mentions old guys and old cars--what about other combinations?
Funny about the brands you call out though-- my first car was a '69 Beetle I bought a few years later; and my Opa used to trade in his Buicks every 2 or 3 years.
The back seat of the Beetle stretches for horny teenagers. What would young people today think of the activity called "parking"?
Cousin Eddie
Car talk affects me like surgery talk, only worse. On the other hand, I'll talk home repairs and construction all day.
ReplyDeleteAlso, this is a little weird, I'm obsessed with weeding. I fill an oversize wheelbarrow up and stack the weeds until they're almost too tall to see over, and keep that up until I'm about to perish from the heat. I almost can't wait to get back to it the next idea, if people will leave me alone and not schedule meetings. I don't make people listen to me talk about it in detail, at least, though of course they're never safe from being bored on other topics.
I am silent Sam.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a lad, I liked talking about old cars and listening to other guys talking about them, too.
ReplyDeleteOnce I had grown up and owned a few cars, I lost all interest in the old ones. I don't care how snazzy they looked, the best old car doesn't hold a candle to any late-model car in terms of reliability, driveability, etc.
(Things might be different if I had any real wealth. Then I might be inclined to dabble in cars-as-toys, in which case I might pick up the occasional oldie. But It'd probably take Zuckerberg-level cash to get me to that point, because the old cars I'd most likely be interested in are things like Dusenbergs, Packards, Bugattis, and other high-end stuff from the 30s and 40s.)
Tex99: Weeding is therapy. But you should also try tractor therapy, it has benefits too.
ReplyDeleteI am almost reluctant to admit, I still have my first car, which I got from an older relative (grandfather's first cousin) when I was a teenager. And at the time, it was twice as old as I was. I'm catching up, though.