7: How to Escape a Bad Conversation

Roula: [00:00:00] How's Tilly doing today? I really don't like the look on your face. Oh, oh, okay. Okay. I want to ask about Tilly and you don't like the look on my face. Well, I'm not gonna ask about her. 

rosie: You look like you're up to no good. Geez. Tilly's good. She's chilling out. She's hot, but she's okay. She had a nice kangaroo bone today, but she loves them.

Roula: Adorable. Adorable. Um, I have something for you. You know, I mean, these are ad hoc questions. We're not prepared for them. I'm not prepared for what I'm gonna ask you. I just have my notes, and one of the notes I have is

Roula: Welcome to the Rosie and R Show. Marhaba. Good day. How do you gracefully get out of a long, boring, single-sided conversation? 

rosie: Oh, no. [00:01:00] Oh, no. Oh, no. Do you want to get out of this world? I need help. I do. I need help with this. Can I give you a really embarrassing story of, of what happened to me a few weeks ago?

rosie: Oh, please. Shoot. I'm going to take the caravan part. Shoot. It just ties in perfectly to this question. I don't have an answer of how you do it, but this is an example of how not to do it. So this lady saw me walking Tilly and she's like, Oh, what a cute puppy, you know, normal sort of stuff, patting the dog.

rosie: And you know, I'm not very good sometimes at picking up on social cues. Like I don't have a lot of friends. I'm awkward at making friends. And this lady goes to me, Oh, do you drink? And I didn't connect the dots that that meant she was inviting me for a drink. And I went, Oh, not really. Sometimes I do. Next thing I know I'm sitting down outside her caravan and she's poured me this giant glass is about a liter.

rosie: I'm not even kidding. She probably had drinking issues with Jack Daniels and Coke. [00:02:00] I reckon it was about a third Jack Daniels and I don't drink much. Like I, I, I'm not. Like, I don't drink at all, but I don't really enjoy it. So I'm trying to politely sip it. I'm like, this is gross. Anyway, the conversation's okay for five, ten minutes, and I'm thinking, oh, I really, really want to leave, but I haven't finished my drink.

rosie: I feel rude, so I'm just sitting there. Twenty minutes has gone past. Twenty five minutes. She's on to her second liter of her drink, whatever she's having. She starts pronouncing her love for me. This woman's in her 50s. She then brings out Oh, excuse 

Roula: me, hold on, hold on, hold on. We have to rewind. I'm in my fifties.

Roula: Would you reject my love if I'm in the fifties? Okay. Okay. Fuck. Just a side note. Fifties can still show off their love. 

rosie: They can but this was a little bit Uncomfortable. Like I only just met you lady and you're professing your love for me. This is a [00:03:00] little bit inappropriate. I'm not feeling comfortable.

rosie: But did I tell her, did I set a boundary? No, I did not because I felt that would be rude. And then she's like, Oh, you look cold. And I was a bit cold. She's like, let me get you a jacket. And I said, no, no, I'm fine. But she insisted. So she went into the caravan, walked out with this woolly jacket and I reached out to get it just like, okay, be polite.

rosie: But Oh no, she walked over and put this jacket on me. And then she leant over and did up the buttons. Wow. It was very uncomfortable. I was, yeah. Invasive, right? What gave her the impression that was okay? It took me over an hour to leave this conversation. It was very one sided. It was her babbling, talking about her kids and, you know, she's a nice enough lady.

rosie: How did you manage to leave? Um. I said, Oh, I'm a bit cold. I'm [00:04:00] going to go have a hot shower.

Roula: You missed your chance when she entered to get you a jacket. You could have run away. Exactly. 

rosie: Like, I just, I really didn't enjoy it. And I was in the middle of a conversation on Messenger with my friend when this interaction started with this lady. And all of a sudden I stopped messaging my friend and she was like, when I messaged her later, she's like, I was about to call you.

rosie: Like I was really concerned. Oh, I wish she did call you. And she said to me, we need a code word so that if you message me with this code word, I will call you and give you an excuse to leave. And I was like, okay, that's, that might not be a bad plan, but I think the real issue here is I need to practice. I want to practice.

rosie: I want to get better at getting out of these conversations because I put myself in a really compromising situation because I didn't have the, we have a saying here, Have the balls, but that's just, I'm not a dude. I don't have balls. I didn't [00:05:00] have the breasts to the vagina walk. No, I, yeah, the vagina.

rosie: Vagina. 

Roula: I don't know why it has vagina to be, this has to be this part of the body that shows strength and resilience and power. What, this is so weird. This brings me to two stories. Two stories, okay. Yeah. One about the balls , which is not related to this conversation. Okay, I'll start with this one. When we, we had like a meeting with the guy from whom we're buying this house from, and where we're sitting at the table, he was talking about a lady at the, at the, somewhere in the, in the, Do you say municipality or city hall?

Roula: A lady at the city hall who, who managed to get some, some work done, which other guys couldn't. And he described that she was the only one who has the balls to get this thing done. And I'm like, [00:06:00] okay, I don't know this guy. But I found myself telling him, Oh, I think she had enough of a vagina to do this.

Roula: He's the guy is in his 70s. He looked at me kind of okay, I'm sitting on my house. I'd better shut up. And I felt triumphant. 

rosie: I wish I was there. Because we don't challenge people do we with these ridiculous sayings? Yeah. Why are balls more more powerful than a vagina? And I wouldn't do this with everyone.

Roula: I don't know why I felt very confident at that moment to do so. To bring us back to my question. Yeah, what was it again? So we, I have the similar interaction with, I had a neighbor. The moment I opened my door to step out of the house. She would do also she opens her door and she starts blaring at me her stories about her life, her problems, her issues, everything.

Roula: Everything's about [00:07:00] her. And I'm standing there about to go and pick up my daughter or do something. I would just want to leave, but she doesn't shut up and I don't know what to do because she doesn't even hear me when I say that I need to go. I try not to ask her questions because each question will lead to even more explanation.

Roula: I agreed with my husband. So, okay, listen, when you're at home and you see us out there outside, I need you either to call me on my phone or just open the door and call me to come inside. You have to get me out of this conversation. And then I was listening to, uh, his name is Jefferson. I don't know what his last name is.

Roula: He's on Instagram and he has a podcast. Okay. Yeah. He touched on this. He said that when people are like talking, they don't shut up and you need to get out of the conversation. You have to keep your words short. First, call their name. 

Roula: So you call their name once,  I see you're busy. I'm going to leave you to it. And I just go and you just walk away. You go. The mistake I used to make is that I tell her how busy I am and that I really have to go, but she doesn't care. She doesn't listen. And when I told her when I called her name and told her that I'm going to leave her to do her thing, she listened.

Roula: Unreal. 

rosie: But you know what, I've had people do this to me and it pisses me off because But this means they don't want to 

Roula: listen 

rosie: and just go. They're telling you to shut up. Well, that's true but, like, can't they just say that? I'm just like, fuck off, don't tell me I'm busy. Like, just 

Roula: own it. But if, so, they don't want to argue with you but look at you, look at you, [00:09:00] how upset you got now.

Roula: Who wants to argue with you? Because I 

rosie: really do. Oh, I better let you go, they say. And I'm like, okay, so you didn't want to talk to me this whole time? I mean, it really, it hurts. I'm like, oh, you didn't want to talk to me this whole time? That's what it feels 

Roula: like. Okay, but instead of feeling hurt, try to think what, why was the conversation not interesting to them?

Roula: Not everyone is interested in listening to us. Because I had this with a friend, who was still a great friend, and I love that we talked about it. There was a moment where every time we meet, I was going through a really tough time. And that this tough moment, it's private, I don't want to talk about it because I didn't ask permission.

Roula: This tough period, it seems that this is the only thing I can talk about. And one day she said to me, like, I want to meet with you, but I can't listen to that anymore. [00:10:00] 

rosie: Uh, yeah. 

Roula: Because you keep talking about it and it's not fun anymore to meet with you. 

rosie: That's a sign of a really good friend. Yeah. A really good friend to have the courage to say that because I think a lot of people would stay silent and not bring that up.

rosie: What was your 

Roula: reaction when she said that to you? This is a good question, Rosie. Excellent question. Excellent. If I haven't been working on myself on getting better at things, I probably would be offended and think, Oh, she doesn't care about me. I have worked on myself in a way that, yeah, look at me, keep talking about this.

Roula: Either I find a solution or I accept it and get on with my life. do something about it because she cannot do. I mean, I could tell her all my trouble. It's nice to vent. And I learned also that I can vent for her like for two minutes, but it's not going to be [00:11:00] our meeting conversation. And this work I did on myself so that I don't get offended if someone tells me something like this.

Roula: I thanked her for getting me my attention. And I thanked her to because now she's helping us to have fun. And put all this shit behind, behind us. Yeah. 

rosie: Oh, I don't think I'm at that point yet. I don't, I don't have the courage. But would you say your relationship is better now that you've had that conversation?

Roula: There is a lot of honesty. With your friends? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It also says that she heard me the first, second, third, fourth times. So I wasn't talking to a wall. 

rosie: We do get a bit self absorbed sometimes, don't we? Oh my gosh. Rula, I can see you're busy. I'm gonna let you go.

Roula: Okay, so now I [00:12:00] have to see what to answer you on this because we're doing the same thing. Life of a podcaster is so busy. Yeah, it is busy. I swear. I hope that we were able to give a little bit of, um, bits and pieces to the listener. I don't have a solution. I'm still practicing this. being aware of it. You sound as bad as me, 

rosie: Rula, telling your husband to call you to get out of it.

rosie: You are as bad as me. 

Roula: True. I think this is part of, of putting boundaries and sticking to them, knowing what you want. That's another 

rosie: episode right there. Yes. Yeah. But on that note, What's the code word with your friend? Code word. Why don't you come up with one for me? 

Roula: Okay. Every time, um, I don't know how relevant, but it could be a code word.

Roula: Probably because I grew up in the war and I watched so many [00:13:00] Vietnam War movies, like, incredibly a lot. Every time I'm in the elevator with people, I want to scream, fire in the hole.

Roula: In my head, I'm screaming it out loud. And I would love to see the reaction on people's faces, but I'd never done it in real life. So this could be your code word. Fire in the hole. All right. Yep. Why not? I'll try it out. I don't even know if I'm saying it correctly. This is what I suppose I hear in my head.

Roula: I 

rosie: think it's fire in the hole. I don't even, does that mean there's a bomb coming? Like, what does that even mean? Probably. Like duck. I've never 

Roula: really thought about that. Yeah. I hope I helped you with finding the code word. 

rosie: Yeah, I don't know about that. Oh, you're not impressed. All right, Rosie, we need to wrap up.

rosie: All right, see ya. I can see you're [00:14:00] busy. Bye. Bye. Bye. See you next time.

rosie: That was fun. If you got a kick out of our conversation today, can you pretty please hit the follow button and share it with another opinionated person? This is the easiest way for you to support the show. It also gives Rula and I the motivation to keep going. I have to 

Roula: stop you there. Stop telling people what to do.

Roula: If they like to follow the show and share it, it's totally up to them. Guys, please can you help us follow and share the show? That's what 

I just said! Ah!