The Reason Why?

I don’t want this to sound like a complaint because it’s really not. It’s more of a simple mild annoyance. I was thinking this the other day after I read a post on a blog of a flight attendant complaining about her pet peeves on airplanes. She listed a number of them, but one stood out in particular to me, maybe because I shared her sentiment.

It had to deal with people who always feel like they have to give you personal information on situations that really don’t call for it. For her, the example was serving people on the plane. In this particular example, she spoke about people on the plane who would ask for a cup of water and tell her that they need the water so that they can take their pills. She went on to say she didn’t care the reason why they needed the water. She doesn’t need their personal information nor the medical conditions. All that is relevant to her is that they require a glass of water and she will accommodate.

When I read that I had to smile because that is a mild annoyance for me as well. So many times people will tell you some information, but then add much more information to it than you care about. TMI it’s called. And yes it annoys me too.

Although I share these posts on this blog, I’m actually quite a private person. I don’t want to know too much that’s going on in other peoples lives unless they’re very close to me, and I don’t like to divulge too much to strangers. Especially things of a personal nature.

I could chalked it up to just being a grumpy, old man as I age, but I know that’s not it. I’ve always been like that. And it’s not just on personal information either. It’s about extraneous useless information that people often share for no reason.

I was recently reading a review on a barber in a city I was visiting. I was looking for a place to get a haircut and I often read reviews if I am going to a new place. So I read up on this particular barber. I saw mostly five star reviews, but I saw one 1 star review. If a place has a lot of five star reviews and only one or 2 one star reviews, I tend to read just the one star reviews. No point reading the five star reviews of many people as they are often redundant. But the one star reviews can be quite entertaining.

This person was complaining because a barber wouldn’t give him a shave. His review started out like this, “ I went to the barber to get a hot shave on a cold day and he turned me away”.

Well, that sentence told me all I needed to know. If I was a barber and he came to me with a line like that, I’ll tell him to get out as well. I mean, I don’t need to know that you want a hot shave on a cold day, how does that add anything to the conversation? that’s just crazy talk. I would judge you as being crazy and just tell you to get out before you did something crazy in my shop. Does a hot shave on a cold day actually warm you up? That’s like people saying they only eat ice cream on hot days. Personally, I don’t eat ice cream to cool me down, I eat it because it taste good. I can eat it anytime.

Yeah, when somebody writes a review like that, I know who I’m siding with. And it’s not the reviewer in this one.

Again, I don’t mean to sound like I’m complaining (even though I am… I just don’t want to sound that way 🤣). It’s really just a mild annoyance as many people do it. But I would prefer if people just keep the reasons why to themselves unless it’s truly relevant to the conversation.