Old people

That's all they can remember, hun.

Cut them a break, that'll be you someday.

Yes, my mom has told me the same stories about 5x apiece.

Ma! Ya told it already! But she's pretty entertaining when she tells the new ones.

I flew from Rome to NY with Greta Garbo as my seat mate. She was chatty and funny and shared her sack lunch with me and lots of stories about Onassis.

Once at dinner, my sister interrupted me with “How many times are you going to tell that fucking story?” Message received. Yeah, I’m old…..

Shreeeeeeeeeeeiik!

Because we’re old, Rose.

Maybe they think sometimes they are not be heard.

What’s worse is responding back to old people but they can’t hear you—there’s lots of “say that again,” and “what again”

Yeah, they do that. But it's because they've told the story so many times they can't remember who they sold it to and end up, repeating it again and again.

I am old enough that I have to ask someone "I may have told you this before, so let me know if I did, OK?"

When my grandfather was in a nursing home, way before he was diagnosed with dementia, we were going to visit him. I lived out of state and was visiting so I hadn't seen him in a long time. But as we were walking in, my mom said " When we get in there, he's going to pull out his drivers license and show it to you. Just be kind and say that's great".

And sure enough, almost immediately, he pulled out his drivers license and said "look at this!" It was heartbreaking.

My sister calls me Shelley Winters on The Tonight Show….told Johnny Carson the same stories over and over again….

Hey, OP...

Have you ever heard of the Dyatlov Pass incident?

I think the people who do this most are the ones who've done the least in their lives. My in-laws retired early (late 50s) and moved out to the country, where they see only a handful of people over the course of a week. They are now in their mid to late 80s, and they didn't do ANYTHING over those 25+ years other than maintaining their lawn and house (plus a trip we took them on to Alaska). So they have nothing to talk about other than re-telling stories from before they moved to the country. So I just smile and listen to the same stories each time we visit them.

A lot of times, these stories are swirling around in their heads and they find them comforting. A moment in their life they found amusing, or riveting and they're always looking for a chance to verbalize them. They're not really challenging their brains with new concepts, so regurgitating these snippets makes them feel connected to their past.

We repeat the stories we remember......

R12 that is really sweet. It is going to make me much more patient going forward when it happens.

I think—in addition to what R11 said about some older folks not having a wide variety of stories to share— is that as their memories deteriorate, they most easily remember the stories they’ve repeated multiple times.

I think my mom had lived a reasonably full life until a fairly advanced age… but even long prior to her dementia setting in, I began to have the feeling that her brain was just growing tired.

Not sure if that’s the best way to phrase it. But, for example, she’d gone from reading books regularly to eventually reading just the headlines in the newspaper.

I’m a huge reader myself but even for me I feel having been online for a couple of decades has done a number on my attention span.

Guess R13 made the same point first. And more succinctly.

R15, that’s ok, we enjoy listening to your story even if someone else told it first.

You do see it with a lot of older folks, but it's a little more excusable there. I've noticed many people as young as 20 or 30-something who do the same thing. Maybe they've just done a lot of drugs or had a few too many drinks in their lives, but they repeat themselves over and over again. It's really bad if you're taking a trip with them and they get into all their greatest hits on a loop. It's enough to make you want to smother them to death.

Most people simply aren't self-aware enough to care about repeating themselves. About 5 semi-interesting things have happened to them in their lives and they'll tell you about them as much as they want, because they're out of material.

OP, I hope when you're old and alone, no one will listen to any of your stories and you die alone and undiscovered for so long that your 10 cats eat your body.

Did I ever tell you the story how I shut down a ski resort with my antics?

My father told me the same five stories long before he got old.

This is why I don't engage with people over 30. Old people are tedious.

Same reason z / illennials publish pictures of their lunch.

[quote]This is why I don't engage with people over 30.

What do you think you're doing right now?

And that is right about the time the trailer park burned, and we all found ourselves without a place to go home to.

Young people don’t have particularly interesting stories either

Each time I tell the story, it's new for me. Sometimes I tell the story to myself so I can laugh too. What I really dislike is when they feed me too fast and I can't tell the story clearly. They should wait until I swallow before spooning another bite into my mouth. Sometimes the food comes out my nose due to their rushing which causes me to slurr my words and ruins the story I'm telling and I have to start over. I only tell the story to each new staff member that feeds me at dinner time.

I realized long ago that everyone is a narcissist so is only interested in their own stories. I always spend my time asking people about their lives. Interesting how few ask about mine.

Did I ever tell you how I got the name "Honest John?

They do it because they don't like you, OP. It's called passive aggressive behavior.

Maybe you will be interesting when you get old OP, You sure aren't now.

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I am 60, kiss my grits!