It's Always More Complicated

I feel that only the Provincial Lady could have done justice to my encounter this evening.

I went to a seminar at the Ministry of Truth (I will pass over the various tribulations which led to me arriving 10 minutes late by which time the room was crowded to the doors and there were no chairs left), which was excellent, and I think I can say I took a useful part in the subsequent discussion.

Ove drinks afterwards, while talking with Eminent Social Policy Historian who had given the paper (and indeed with various others) I was afflicted by a woman in, ahem, the later years of middle life (I was able to calculate from the information she so generously volunteered about herself that she is some few years my senior).

Who was one of those people whose idea of conversation is telling you about themselves, and, should they touch on a general or impersonal subject, do so in such a way as to ensure you realise that their opinions (which are, of course, the right opinions) are what matter, rather than opening up a discussion.

Any conversation, even between two people clearly exchanging information, was an excuse to go off on some other tangent about herself.

I realise that part of my dubiousness about the 25 Things Meme is that the recitation of things you've done or that have happened to you do not necessarily make you an Interesting Person, in fact, possibly the reverse. Not that she had done anything particularly interesting (okay, there was one thing, which was even related to the topic of the seminar, but I don't think she needed to go on reiterating this from various angles).

Did she ask anyone else about themselves? No - not even when one might have thought the conversation might have suggested cues.

I think of this sort of thing as much more frequently a male-bore phenomenon, but when women do it it's equally annoying. Not because they are not being charming and deferential and 'bringing out' other people: because they're being Bloody Boring and Full of Themselves For No Apparent Reason.

I don't consider that women of my sort of years should creep around like a well-meaning missionary's depiction of C19th Hindu widowhood, but I think a bit of reserve - and listening to other people - are always appropriate.

And I also wonder how much of this particular cringe goes back to grandmother issues. And my mother's take on her mother.

Anyway, the thing that finally determined my decision not to go on to dinner with the group was the thought of being further trapped with this person banging on. (And she had some opinions that I considered fairly noxious, or at least, over-simplistic which it seemed largely pointless to challenge, in a teaching-the-pig-to-sing way, but which I wasn't sure I was going to able to sustain not-exploding at over the longer duration.)

Say something nice to the prickly hedgehog: