How should they react?

( Roota zweeeeeoooooowm, Mon 16 May 2011, 13:19, 2 replies)

They should stop being so feckin' nosy shouldn't they Roota.
How dare people pry into her personal life with their questions.
(Bazongaloid, Mon 16 May 2011, 13:20, closed)

No I mean when she says she's had three miscarriages and is about to start IVF, how should they react to that?
The tumbleweed response is no good, nor is nervously babbling about some vaguely similar situation they can tenuosuly link to her experience (which I'm assuming they only do so as not to give her the tumbleweed response and make her feel bad.)
Should they maybe say "Oh my god that's awful. How are you coping?" Because I'm sure that if people start doing that she'll be back on here in a few weeks saying she's fed up of being simpered at.

I want to know how I should react in that situation, that's if I'm ever insensitive and intrusive enough to dare say to someone "Do you have any kids?"
( Roota zweeeeeoooooowm, Mon 16 May 2011, 13:26, closed)

I have to say that your insensitivity and intrusivness
has always been your biggest flaw in my eyes.
(Bazongaloid, Mon 16 May 2011, 13:28, closed)

Your bathroom flaw has always been the biggest flaw in your house
because you want your wife to find your fat dead arse in there when you die on the bog like Elvis.
( Roota zweeeeeoooooowm, Mon 16 May 2011, 13:32, closed)

Nope. How many 'woe is me' posts have I ever put on here
(out of all both of them)? If your question is actually genuine, then I'm still thinking.
My initial reaction was to wonder why someone wants to know?
I'm looking for helpful webpages that say it so much better than I can, since my words seem to come across as 'self indulgent and obsessed' or whatever.
(maggotriddendirtbox fast, feral and sharp as a tack since, Tue 17 May 2011, 6:58, closed)

I generally give people a multiple choice questionaire that they fill in before we start a conversation.
Have you ever been involved in a personal tragedy relating to the following (tick all applicable):
* football
* the weather
* the eurovision song contest
* holidays
* your job
* the weather
* kids these days, eh? what-are-they-like!?
* that thing on the telly last night
* the weather
* so how do you know John/Sarah/Monty/Isabella?
* I wish they'd turn the music down in here I can't hear myself think
* can I get you a drink?
* what LOVELY shoes!

That way I can steer my way through the tedious clichés of social interaction without risking being on the end of an emotional dump.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Mon 16 May 2011, 15:36, closed)

Can't say as I've ever had an emotional dump. A few have brought tears to my eyes, granted, but no fond farewells as they slid around the U-bend.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Mon 16 May 2011, 16:21, closed)

Some of mine I can't flush until I've played Billy Holiday's version of "I'm a fool to want you"
while sipping absinthe and staring at a crumpled photograph of a long-lost lover.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Mon 16 May 2011, 16:40, closed)