Pet Peeve: People Who Are Overly Familiar

I know some people can't help it, but it bugs me when people are overly familiar. Like when people who actually do know me make assumptions about me, based on some rumor they heard, or some guess they made. If there is something personal and I haven't volunteered it to someone I know, then that means that either (a) it is not the case or (b) maybe I don't want to be poked about it for whatever reason.

When they get whatever the thing is wrong or bring what the thing is up in an inconsiderate place or time, that is annoying. But the part that really annoys me is the name-dropping nature of it. Like they wouldn't want to have an actual personal conversation with me, but they would want to drop my name to anyone who might be impressed that they know me.

Here is an example: There was someone who I now know dropped my name constantly, after Forrest and I'd shot her at an event and working with me one time -- count it, once. And I guess she fleshed out a fictional backstory for me to show how well she knew me, but she was so deluded that she started to believe it herself. So she had a conversation with me about how I never graduated high school. Uhm. I don't have quite as much post-graduate work as I'd once assumed I'd do and I did go to college when I was 16, but I had a high school diploma in hand, thanks. I guess maybe she came up with that based on her own status (which I admit I don't know because I'm not that familiar with her) or maybe she figured punk rock meant uneducated, as opposed to philosophically different or disenfranchised. Whatever her defective rationale was, it bugged me that she would spread something so egregiously inaccurate in order to pretend to know me better than she did (or does.) I do not think my high school graduation status is something that anyone who knows me is obliged to know. But it is really overly familiar for someone to assume they know and then make commentary about something so delusional to show other people (and me!) how well they know me.

This happen to other people?

Yup. I've heard plenty of stories about things I've done, people I've supposedly slept with, etc., and I'm often left wondering where it came from, because it bears no relation to the truth.

There was a guy in Baltimore at a club saying he was my son, even though he was NINETEEN (19), and I didn't meet his mom until 1995. People are weird.

I know what you mean exactly.. people I do know are regularly saying they met Mr X or Ms Y "who said they knew you", and most times they know to play with them and get me on the phone, or offer to pass on a number.. you can apparently almost hear sweat hitting the carpet.

I used to get pissy at it, the same "how very dare you!" you're talking about in your post, but I've mellowed to it. 'Bandfriends' live 24/7 with the fear of being caught out, and I live 24/7 with the fact there are people out there who I can play with when I'm bored. I know which side I wanna be on.

I've got a quote for you, but of course since I grew up living in your bathroom and wrote all your material, you already know it - so for the rest of our readers....

When lots of people know you, you're just popular.
When lots of people pretend to know you - you're famous.

mG

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Originally Posted by Mindgames

When lots of people know you, you're just popular.
When lots of people pretend to know you - you're famous.

mG

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Excellent quote.

I've made it a habit of not letting people know anything about me I guess so I wouldn't have that problem

i hate people who just have to say all the names of their friends that they where with, when you ask them what they did yesterday... damn makes me sick
it really does, seriously..........
but i guess that gives them some kind of comfort in saying those names to themselves and their sourrondings so it appears that they acctually do have friends...

or maybe its just me?

oh yea... a couple of child-hood freinds, I don't think we would still be talking to each other if it wasn't for the extraordinary.

hm. In high school, I had stories made up about how many guys I'd slept with, before I'd so much as kissed anyone. Those types of rumors were generally started by people who didn't like someone I was hanging out with. Guilt by association, I guess. For most of my life I've been neither popular or notorious, and am grateful thus far that no one is just dying to know me, or use my name to gain status.

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Originally Posted by Mr Karl

I've made it a habit of not letting people know anything about me I guess so I wouldn't have that problem

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See, I share everything about myself with anyone who asks... and I still hear interesting stories about myself. I've actually added a couple of the better ones to my own version of my history, some are a lot better than my actual mundane life.

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Originally Posted by Gabriel

See, I share everything about myself with anyone who asks... and I still hear interesting stories about myself. I've actually added a couple of the better ones to my own version of my history, some are a lot better than my actual mundane life.

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I used to have pretty much no filter and would volunteer information. But people would still come up with fantastical ideas of what the real deal must secretly be. Over time, I have become very private, though, to the point where there are people who really are close friends but kinda have limited knowledge of me.

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Originally Posted by Amelia G

I used to have pretty much no filter and would volunteer information. But people would still come up with fantastical ideas of what the real deal must secretly be. Over time, I have become very private, though, to the point where there are people who really are close friends but kinda have limited knowledge of me.

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It's sad that it has to be that way, but it's hard to just trust anyone. It can take years for someone to really show their true colors, by which time they have plenty of information about you to elaborate on and make fanciful tales. The majority of the population has yet to realize that people are not the most exciting things to contemplate or discuss.

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Originally Posted by Janiac02

It's sad that it has to be that way, but it's hard to just trust anyone. It can take years for someone to really show their true colors, by which time they have plenty of information about you to elaborate on and make fanciful tales. The majority of the population has yet to realize that people are not the most exciting things to contemplate or discuss.

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I do tend to trust people more over time, but there have certainly been people who showed their true colors waaaaaaaay after I would have thought they were cool. Probably one of the reasons I tend to be very private, even with people I do trust and feel strongly about.

And, can I just say that teenage me in a time machine would have been shocked to read me saying that.

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Originally Posted by Amelia G

I do tend to trust people more over time, but there have certainly been people who showed their true colors waaaaaaaay after I would have thought they were cool. Probably one of the reasons I tend to be very private, even with people I do trust and feel strongly about.

And, can I just say that teenage me in a time machine would have been shocked to read me saying that.

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Likewise. Of course, teenage me wasn't really that long ago, but it was a quick lesson learned. Along with people exploiting your private life, the problem is that people ask questions about you when they don't really care about the answers. So why share? They either save that information for later, or are simply using pleasantries so they can open up the flood gates about their personal lives.

i work in a porn shop and i hate it when a customer acts like theyre your friend just cos they shop there once a week, creeps me out

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Originally Posted by Janiac02

...The majority of the population has yet to realize that people are not the most exciting things to contemplate or discuss.

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Wow, I sure fit that one. I really can't think of anything more interesting or worthwhile to think about than people.

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Originally Posted by grebo

i work in a porn shop and i hate it when a customer acts like theyre your friend just cos they shop there once a week, creeps me out

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Wow, that sure does sound like a creepy situation, especially if any of your customers ever see you randomly around town, like trying to talk to you when you're out to eat or such. That would definitely get old really fast.

Ok,this is kinda straying from the thread but I also used to work in a porn shop/lingerie store. And yes the customers do tend to get "overly familiar" after what seemed like only a few visits. I mean,I was used to it for the most part when people would come in a tell me all kinds of personal sex stuffs about themselves,it kinda came w/ the territory,and I'm very frank and open about sex so it didn't really bother me. But more and more I would run into customer in my personal life who would think it was ok to continue previous conversation about erectile disfunction or failure to achieve orgasm or any number of other sexual ailments or anticdotes. I always tried to be friendly for the most part,just for the sake of the store really. But sometimes it was just downright imposing on my daily goings-on,and as far as the male customers went,yes alot of them made inncorrect assumptions about me based on where I worked,and that could be just scary sometimes.

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Originally Posted by Gabriel

Wow, I sure fit that one. I really can't think of anything more interesting or worthwhile to think about than people.

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Things that involve people, sure, but I suspect discussing an individual and the choices they make isn't your primary source of entertainment. Or maybe it is, in which case, yes, that's the category I was speaking of. Of course, I think people are interesting too.

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Originally Posted by grebo

i work in a porn shop and i hate it when a customer acts like theyre your friend just cos they shop there once a week, creeps me out

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I hate that and I work in a Service Station .. would imagine it might be worse for you haha

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Originally Posted by DeviantMommy

Ok,this is kinda straying from the thread but I also used to work in a porn shop/lingerie store. And yes the customers do tend to get "overly familiar" after what seemed like only a few visits. I mean,I was used to it for the most part when people would come in a tell me all kinds of personal sex stuffs about themselves,it kinda came w/ the territory,and I'm very frank and open about sex so it didn't really bother me.

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Lol try being a bartender, I love the people that come in and get one drink and them and just wont shut up. There is this one couple that comes in and the guy always ends up crying like a baby and telling me how mean his wife is and shit lol, its pretty akward since shes sitting right there. lol

But generally people being over familiar doesn't bother me, I'm just glad someone's talking to me. :1orglaugh

I am trying to be get better at talking to people and tend to volunteer more information than I would give to, oh, my mother. Due to a really crappy family situation, I stayed in my bedroom with as little contact with my family as I could get away with for five very long years. It got to the point where I stopped speaking in school. When you've become know as the "crazy artsy bitch" (overheard one day in religion class. glad to see we were all being so accpeting.) making friends is a challenge. I used to really enjoy what the cheerleaders had to say about me. I find myself missing them on slow writing days. They were good for wild characters and ridiculous plots.

These days, I try not to let it bother me. If it does, I write about it, always writing scathing discriptions of those that have pissed me off.

One of the few things I miss about my old retail job is the rumours I used to hear about myself. I have no idea where most of them originated. The best one would have been the rumour that I had a baby, which I didn't hear until my manager took me aside and told me that legally, I had to take at least 6 weeks maternity leave. Never mind that I've never been pregnant, let alone given birth. I've never even looked pregnant.

While it was entertaining to hear such things about myself, I still have yet to figure out why people felt it necessary to make up such utter crap about me.

Not in that way, no.

My issue that makes me paranoid as hell is when people walk up to me that I have no recollection of ever meeting and start asking me questions or talking to me regarding things I never discuss. Like have I pulled out the such and such from the back garden yet.

Concidering I rarely have people over to my house, usually only hang out else where and never really discuss gardening at all much less the specifics of my back yard (which is not visible from the road, and my elderly neighbor is long since deciesed.)... Maybe I have a stalker club?

Cant blame them. Nothing better to do in this town that pick up odd habits.

there is this rumour going aroung my school that im a necropheliac its been going around since the 8th grade and im in11th. im like what the fuck!

You just gotta stop fucking those dead people...

Duh!

I would take the weird fascination with you as a compliment and roll on. When their personal reality is boring they have to make it seem more interesting and pad stuff. Guess she never stopped playing make believe. Belives in Santa? Probably.

Case in point: my soon to be ex roomate: Fresh litany of a new cockquest, I interrupt and ask which one? Mr. X? No. Mr. Y? No. His name is Z. What happened to what-his-face? Oh we are just friends. I look puzzled. She says something like "its not like I am a slut, I never sleep with any of them." I look at her and say, right, that is why you sweated your preggo test last weekend.

Badda-bing! Case in point.

I too believe in the immaculate conception, and people's need to twist facts around so they can sleep at night. Doesn't mean you have to have anything to do with them.

I know that anyone who has ever read an article about me knows everything there is to know, so what are you so upset about? :1orglaugh

now seems like a good time to discuss peeves.

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Originally Posted by Amelia G

I know some people can't help it, but it bugs me when people are overly familiar. Like when people who actually do know me make assumptions about me, based on some rumor they heard, or some guess they made. If there is something personal and I haven't volunteered it to someone I know, then that means that either (a) it is not the case or (b) maybe I don't want to be poked about it for whatever reason.

When they get whatever the thing is wrong or bring what the thing is up in an inconsiderate place or time, that is annoying. But the part that really annoys me is the name-dropping nature of it. Like they wouldn't want to have an actual personal conversation with me, but they would want to drop my name to anyone who might be impressed that they know me.

Here is an example: There was someone who I now know dropped my name constantly, after Forrest and I'd shot her at an event and working with me one time -- count it, once. And I guess she fleshed out a fictional backstory for me to show how well she knew me, but she was so deluded that she started to believe it herself. So she had a conversation with me about how I never graduated high school. Uhm. I don't have quite as much post-graduate work as I'd once assumed I'd do and I did go to college when I was 16, but I had a high school diploma in hand, thanks. I guess maybe she came up with that based on her own status (which I admit I don't know because I'm not that familiar with her) or maybe she figured punk rock meant uneducated, as opposed to philosophically different or disenfranchised. Whatever her defective rationale was, it bugged me that she would spread something so egregiously inaccurate in order to pretend to know me better than she did (or does.) I do not think my high school graduation status is something that anyone who knows me is obliged to know. But it is really overly familiar for someone to assume they know and then make commentary about something so delusional to show other people (and me!) how well they know me.

This happen to other people?

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That was very Punk Rock of you amelia. Do you listen to the Ramones? I love The Sex Pistols, The Ramones... all the Classics...

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Originally Posted by BigBoy

That was very Punk Rock of you amelia. Do you listen to the Ramones? I love The Sex Pistols, The Ramones... all the Classics...

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In what way is that very punk rock?

all the stories I've heard about me are either really funny, really cool, or really true. some of them even funnier or rader than my real life, lol.

Oh, I don't think people even talk about me. Could be wrong though. I'd rather not know anyway.

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Originally Posted by mystoo

Oh, I don't think people even talk about me. Could be wrong though. I'd rather not know anyway.

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funny... i'm making up a story about you as I type... totally fabricated...

Haha...I'd love to hear it sometime. Bigmouth:)

You're talking about that article where Perez outed you as Reese Witherspoon's stunt double, aren't you?

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Originally Posted by VoltaireBlue

all the stories I've heard about me are either really funny, really cool, or really true. some of them even funnier or rader than my real life, lol.

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('rad' as a comparative adjective... gotta love a cunning linguist)

God fucking yes. >.<

Personally, I've never heard any stories about me. I put it down to people being too scared to try and verify/talk to me at all, rather than them not existing.

But I want to drop my entire extended family on the cold hard concrete for ever talking to me like they know a damn thing about me. I seriously don't think there's one of them who knows what my favourite colour is, and I can think of at least ten instances of telling people it last year just off-hand.

And the people who hang out with me a couple of times because they like the way I dress or something, then expect me to join in on their conversations. They're total fucking strangers to me. It's not even creepy-weird, it's just stupid-weird.

The next time someone tells me I was 'checking her out' I'm just gonna punch them -without- saying anything... <.<

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Originally Posted by TheDeathKnight

You just gotta stop fucking those dead people...

Duh!

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Buzzkill D:

It is ever-amazing how people you're vaguely familiar with from one context are expected to be your best pals should you ever find them in another.

Past classmates you never talked to at school suddenly have a stake in knowing what happened to you in the half-decade since; people that enthusiastically approach you in a grocery store about how they once saw you at a party, while apparently merely seeing one another isn't much substance for conversation while at what's supposed to be the social event...

I mean, I don't disapprove of it - it's just an oddity of our cultures' social protocol - but it's really odd if you look at the logic of it. Also it gets a really funny kind of awkward when it happens the other way around with weekend-goths, closeted drag queens or pretty much anyone from fetish events period, since I only look a somewhat scruffier kind of crazy in everyday life but some of them are terrified to be spotted outside a club wearing black.

It's always priceless to say "Oh, hi Ophelia' at a now wig-less sales clerk and having them get looked at weird by co workers, or wonder where that huge almost-mohawked BDSM enthusiast's piercings and german accent went when you catch him buying garbage bags.

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Originally Posted by Raza

It's always priceless to say "Oh, hi Ophelia' a the now wig-less sales clerk and having them get looked at weird by co workers, or wonder where that huge almost-mohawked BDSM enthusiast's piercings and german accent went when you catch him buying garbage bags.

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LMAO... so true

It can be annoying. I have found most people have the sense not to believe most of the rumor and innuendo. It does happen with increasing frequency for a number of reasons. I've found it to be an odd unifying factor though. We all get it. We set aside our differences and collaborate more. It's the one good thing that has come out of the economic crisis and other local difficulties one faces out here.

OEC