MY THRESHOLDS ARE LOW!

Mature Gentleman, look away now.    

I know I have a low boredom threshold, and my attention wanders pretty damn quick if I’m not fully engaged with either a person, film, or even a book.

But when it comes to a mature man trying to entertain me with what he thinks is an interesting tale, sometimes I struggle to disguise my FFS shut up face.

Some people would have us believe that this, low boredom threshold thing, is the sign of an intelligent mind, but in my case, I can assure you it’s just a sign that someone is taking far too long to tell me a story!

Yep, I’m just plain bloody bored.

I honestly do try, but today was a prime example of something that happens to me quite regularly.  Is it them, or is it me I ask myself.  But I’ve a better idea.  You decide!

I’ve been away for a week to Spain, on my holibobs. I’ve eaten some nice food, seen some nice places, and met some nice people.

In fact it’s all be SO ‘nice’ that I have a story or two of my own to impart to anyone who is willing to listen.

But today was clearly not my turn for storytelling.

One of my very mature ‘gentlemen friends’ called in to collect some duty free cigarettes I’d got for him. And when I say ‘friend’ he is just that.

A lovely, very rotund chap, who is outrageously rude and opinionated, but hilariously funny at the same time.  He’s usually great company.

But today, the boring bug had bitten him good and proper.

He bustled in with a big bear hug and peck on the cheek for me, plonked himself down rather heavily in a chair not made for girth.

Being polite, I got in first, and asked him how he was, and what he’d been up to.   BIG mistake!

Now I can tell you what he’d been up to in these few words.

His friend, a farmer, got a puncture on his truck but he had no spare tyre, so he was going off to get it repaired for him. Some modern vehicles don’t come with a spare these days, just a repair kit, which isn’t much good if it’s a 4×4 and you regularly drive over fields and ditches like he does.  What a daft idea these repair kits are for commercial vehicles, surely they should come with a spare tyre.  END OF.

Only his version went on, and on and on.  He told me about the inner workings of an inner tube, the size of the wheel, the make of the vehicle, and went into great detail about a series of letters he had previously exchanged with the MD of the car manufacturer, regarding the aforementioned omission of a spare tyre.   

He quoted parts of each letter, quoted part of the current licencing law for commercial vehicles and didn’t even stop when I began to pick my nails and do that thing we ladies do when we are not in the least bit interested, and start saying, ‘yeah’ in a….’ hurry up and shut up’ kind of way.

For Fuck Sake……….seriously, why do men do this.  Take FOREVER to tell a story which holds NO interest whatsoever for a female listener.

Don’t they realise, it’s so damn boring and eventually we just zone out.  They are so busy droning on and on, they can’t even pick up the signals that it’s time to shut up.

And not to mention their ability to hark back to something that happened 4 decades ago, making it sound like it happened last week.

What is that all about.  Talk about living in the past.

Women are good at just getting the pertinent facts of a story across aren’t they.  We can tell it exactly how it is in a few sentences, and move on swiftly to the next bit of juicy gossip.

We live in the moment; we are best at banter and bare facts.   

WE DON’T CARE if whatever, happened on a Monday at 7, or Thursday at 10.  We just want to know WHAT happened!

BUT ‘mature’ men seem to have to be SO precise about the facts of any incident.  As if a minor wrong detail will affect the bloody outcome of the story.

Chaps, do us women a favour,  just cut to the chase, the quicker the better.

Eventually this morning, I had no alternative, but to stand up, look at the clock and squeeze in ‘it’s been lovely to see you’ (now bugger off), before he told me the colour of the vehicle and what size underpants the owner wore.

Thankfully, getting the hint, he heaved himself out of the chair, picked up his Silk Cut Purple and went happily, if obliviously on his way.

My ‘gentleman friend’ is intelligent, well versed, bright and amusing in general conversation, but OMG, get him onto telling a story, and you end up hearing the ins and outs of a magpies arse………

Did he ask anything about my holiday. NO.

Did I get the chance to tell him anything about my holiday. NO.

Does the same thing happen to you?   Tell me………..

Otherwise I shall think I’m just a really rubbish ‘lady friend’ who is only interested in the sound of her own voice!