She doesn't want to converse. She doesn't even really want to work. All she wants to do is talk about herself, how fucked up her family is, how worried she is about all of it ... and how fabulously she's handling it all.
But she's not. She's obsessing. As a 24/7 obsessor myself, I would have more sympathy for her. Except that she's dismissive of me and my concerns. "Worry is a waste of time," she'll tell me. "Worry won't affect the outcome." When I repeated her admonition back to her, I thought she'd slug me.
When I told her what happened to me yesterday, why I wouldn't be in, she said, "Yeah, ok." I'm worried about a cancer screening, and she says, "Yeah, ok." She's made it abundantly clear in the last month that what I say is not of any interest to her and so she doesn't feel she needs to pay attention.
But what is her brother going to say to father? What is her youngest sister going to say to her father? What will her siblings decide together to do? How will her father respond? These nuggets I'm supposed to hang on as though they are the latest findings by the Mueller committee.
Her self-interest is why we can be friendly, but not friends. And why like, King Richard, I want to call out: My kingdom for a door!
Can you get some earplugs? lol
ReplyDeleteOK, for realz though, I've found that having my earbuds in at work and having to say, "I'm sorry, what?" as I yank them out sometimes makes people re-evaluate how important their interruption is. You can always say that you need to focus and your brain is not cooperating so it doesn't look so obviously SHUT-UP-Y!