People and their inconsiderate socializing!! !

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I would be about as irrational as humans get if I believed socializing is inconsiderate in all, or even most, cases.

But there are instances when it is and i'm currently dealing with one of those situations now.

I live in a high-rise condo on the beach. Before anyone thinks this is such a privilege, I live here with a family member who owns the unit we live in and i'd be homeless if I didn't live here. This building is made up of alot of wealthy retirees, so i'm sure you can guess what U.S. state i'm in

In any case.....one of the elevators in the building is shut down for repairs. This of course means one less elevator for everyone coming and going. That doesn't just include the old retirees who have nothing better to do than exchange meaningless plesantries with their neighbors.

That means electricians, plumbers, movers and other workmen who are constantly doing something in the building. That means the younger working people and students who live here as comparatively few as they are. That means the maintenance staff in building and the friends and relatives of these retirees who are paying them a visit. That means alot of people who have more important things to do than exchange meaningless pleasantries with their neighbors.

Nonetheless....it's as though many of these retirees are completely oblivious to this. The wait times for the elevators are even longer than they usually are for the aforementioned reason. But these people think NOTHING of holding the elevator while they're talking to someone about the weather or something!! !

Call me crazy....but you no right to inconveinence others just because you want to discuss the outcome of last night's baseball game.

I'm sure most of you realize i'm not saying this is just an issue limited to this building...it's just the latest example i've dealt with.

Same thing happens in stores and just about everywhere else. Some inconsiderate idiots are always holding everyone else up just because they want to exchange meaningless pleasantries.

And as usual....nobody ever speaks up and I KNOW i'm not the only one annoyed by this sort of behavior. I speak up on numerous occasions when i'm actually feeling bold enough to say anything to other humans at all. Said occasions are rare and I need not explain why to a bunch of people who have an ASD. You don't have to be autistic to find this crap irritating, self-entitled and downright rude. I see cashiers in grocery stores stop what they're doing simply to make hand gestures during a pointless conversation with the customer they're ringing up. Neither party seems to think there's anything wrong with this even if the line at the register is starting to resemble the great wall of China!! !

I don't personally engage in meaningless and casual conversations (or meaningful and not-so casual ones for that matter) with anyone, but i'm not criticizing those who enjoy doing so.

I AM criticizing those who incovenience others just because they want to talk about their kids or whatever. There is a time and place for everything but many people just seem to think every time and place is a cocktail party.





In a more neutral sense......this serves as an illustration of how important casual social exchanges are to some people. For the life of me....i'll never understand why it's so important to state the obvious ("what a beautiful day!! !....I took my dogs for a walk this morning and it was just wonderful"! !!) to others. Is silence really THAT awkward and horrible? Do I need some external confirmation about the weather and do I care anything about you and your dogs??? Why do people just like filling the air with sound? They might as well be speaking in tongues half the time.

You could take the stairs. I'll bet the retirees hardly ever use them--too hard on their elderly knees.

Too hard on me too. I'm not exactly in the best of physical condition myself and it's bit much to expect alot people, young or old, to climb seven flights of stairs.


I can't handle exercise when i'm depressed like this. I start getting serious panic attacks whenever my heart rate goes up.

Do you have some kind of intense schedule where you are always in a hurry? I'm not often in a hurry, since my own schedule is flexible, so standing in line or waiting for an elevator is not a big irritant for me.

If you're a depressed unemployed person with nowhere to be, then waiting for other human beings a moment longer for them to finish their conversation doesn't seem like a terrible imposition.

No...quite frankly I don't at the moment.

But it really shouldn't matter if the people being held up by crap like this have some kind of "intense schedule where they are always in a hurry" or not.

What matters is that these people are impeding the progress of others simply because they want to talk about the weather or something.

It doesn't matter if the people they're holding up are simply missing a few seconds of their favorite TV show. You do not have the right to stop others from doing ANYTHING just because you wish to engage in meaningless pleasantries. If you wish to engage in such pleasantries...fine. Do it on your own time and that of the person/s willingly engaging in the exchange with you. I don't see how this is too much to ask. There are countless opportunities in life to engage in casual "small talk" conversations. You don't need to hold up elevators in high-rise condos, lines in grocery stores, or traffic to do so.

And yes...i've seen plenty of people STOPPED at green lights or stop signs just to engage in friendly chatter with someone on the street.

I didn't say it was a terrible imposition either. I said it was inconsiderate, self-entitled and irritating. There is a difference.

Can you offer me one GOOD reason why I , or anyone else, SHOULD be expected to wait for others while they finish their utterly pointless conversations?

I've never understood the whole holding the door on the elevator thing to talk to someone... I've never understood stopping at the top of a flight of stairs to talk to people, or in doorways. What really irks me is when people roll down their car window to talk to someone driving in the opposite direction. I don't care if the street is busy or not... if I'm in my car, behind you, I'm in my car because I have somewhere to go. Pull over or something. Move to the side of the elevator, move to the wall instead of the doorway, talk in the parking lot on the way to your car... just anywhere other than in everyone else's way, lol.

Around here, it happens everywhere... and seems like it is all of the time.

It doesn't bother me that they want to talk about things. But to the line of 5+ of us standing behind that person, we are trying to get somewhere else and it's being hindered.

When those people go home, they don't say "I held up 20 people to get on the elevator today", they say "I had a nice chat with Bob"... and I think that THAT is what really bothers me about it.

I personally, am just a stay at home mom. I usually have nothing super important to do at any particular time, but I don't want to be stuck in a hallway behind 2 people chatting it up for 10 minutes, when I could be on the way home to get household stuff done. If I can get something done 5 minutes early at home, then you best believe that is what I'm shooting for.

Granted, stay at home mom is pretty hectic, but I believe I'd kind of be thinking the same way regardless of what I was on the way home to do. Once you've built a schedule around things that you do every single day, even things as simple as "going home and lounging on the couch for an hour" becomes SOMETHING to get back to. ...and you know as well as I do, that to many of us on the spectrum, that WOULD be something important to get back to to keep things in order.

But that isn't the point of all of this anyway, it seems. I'm pretty sure the OP is just explaining that it is plain rude and inconsiderate for others to not even bother to move over to the side to allow others to get through.

...on a side note: I have noticed that if you just walk right up to people who are blocking the way and say "excuse me, can I get through?" they will look up and notice others standing there, or realize that they are in the way and move, lol.

Last edited by anxiety25 on 04 May 2010, 6:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Tell them their stopping the elevator constantly is what is doing damage to it. Perhaps leave a note near the stop button.

You could also tell them their little stopping of the elevator has caused you to miss an important doctor apointment.

Complain to the condo board for that building that this constant stopping of the elevator is costing everybody who lives there both time and money.



Tell them politely you have to go to the bathroom can they please speed it up or do I need to call the manager?

You could also yell that there other people in line who have more important things to do then listen to you two.



I know this might make you a little weirded out (I know it would me) just start bitching to anyone who will listen. You will be suprised at how many people will agree with you. Get a petition for everyone to sign to get this activity stopped in your building. (of course find someone else to go to door, perhaps your relative)

Last edited by Todesking on 04 May 2010, 6:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

AaAaaHhH feel yore pain... These twits irritate the sh*t outta me, too. Even if there isn't anywhere I have to be, I can surely find something better to do with my time than stand around waiting for them to move their vapid, slack-jawed @sses out of the way. If they must loiter, the least they could do is move to one side, buUuUutTtt NnNOoOoOooOoo!! !! They always have to stand right in the middle of a high traffic area, in just such a way that you can't get around them without a loud "EXCUSE ME" - which invariably has to be repeated at least three times before they acknowledge having heard it.

It should be socially acceptable to Taser these morons if they can't take their conversations somewhere private and allow others to get on with the business of living.

I'm not so sure that would work. Then people would complain that there are bodies in the way and they are not easy to get around, or that it took too long for the person to do it in the first place. LOL. I could so easily see that happening... I mean, come on-remember the coffee incident? The Toaster Strudel mishap?

You could turn your head towards them and say "F@@K OFF!" It works, some of the near by people will giggle, some will be shocked, but they all learn not to talk to you again.

Last edited by Todesking on 04 May 2010, 6:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I get this. It is really irritating when I am driving somewhere and am held up because tow people in front of me stop in their vehicles to chatter, or the driver stops to talk to a pedestrian for whatever reason. I hate it when a customer in front of me in line engages the clerk in a personal conversation. It is inconsiderate.


Old people have a different pace though, and they are not going to understand why you are in such a hurry.

Ah, but bodies are easier to just shove out of the way, and might help the OP get in some kinda shape so he could use the stairs and quit being victimized by NT 'diarrhea of the jaw'.

They are communicating about other matters. If these discussions were a meal, the weather, pleasantries about the dog, etc would be the plates and cutlery rather than the food.

The information of importance is about the participants and their relationship to each other. This kind of information is naturally important to an animal that has evolved complex flexible behaviour alongside reliance on social cooperation with potential competitors.

That's exactly what I was saying. It is plain rude and inconsiderate. And while I just might be the dumbest person in the world who scored 143 on their last IQ test, even I realize there's a very simple solution to nonsense like this.


Hmm..let's see...I think it kinda goes something like this:


If you are holding up an elevator simply to have a casual conservation with someone, your time is obviously not that important to you at that point.

So here's a brilliant solution to this problem and one which has eluded scientists, mathematicians and philosophers for centuries.

TRY GETTING OFF THE ELEVATOR AND CONTINUING YOUR CONVERSATION ABOUT THE RECENT EPISODE OF "DANCING WITH THE STARS".

That way....you would free up the elevator for the people on the 8th floor who are trying to get to work, school, their Dr.'s appointment or nowhere at all.

So if my calculations are correct here....then this is kinda how it would work out and might just win the Nobel prize for this

This is just one of my groundbreaking solutions...if the rest of you think hard enough 2nd ....i'm sure you can come up with others.

I want to install a machine gun on top of my car.

lol, I think I scored 80 something. I never come up all that bright in the testing... but even I will look around if I decide to talk to someone, and kind of nudge the person I'm talking to out of the way if they don't move on their own, so that others can get through. I rarely will stop to talk when out places-usually I just keep moving and the other person has to if they want to talk badly enough