I have a co-worker who seems comfortable talking about just about anything. Like today, I have been treated to her thoughts on her recurring yeast infections. Lemme tell you, she's done quite a bit of thinking about 'em.

What have people felt comfortable talking to you about...that you really wish they didn't?

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

Answers

Sometimes you have to wonder about these people. What is it that makes them hear the phrase 'Tell me all about it', when you haven't said a word all day?

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

Personal problems from anyone other than a good friend always throw me for a loop. Like, okay, co-worker, I don't REALLY need to know about your boyfriend's drinking problem and how he beats up on you, and you get mad when I ask you why you're with him and why you don't chuck his ass, so I'm not sure what you're telling me this for....

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

The first week that I was working with a new co-worker, we were talking about how some women wear bras that make the tops of their boobs spill out, making it look like they have four boobs. Without skipping a beat she looks at me and says, "I have a third nipple." The only thing I could think to say to that was, "Is it sensitive?" She then told me that for most of her life she thought it was just a mole, but a dermatologist told her it was a tiny nipple.

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

I knew a trio of siblings who all had third nipples. It was pretty common knowledge. They were all on their stomachs or backs, so lots of people saw them, too.

As for yeast infection girl, you could say something snide like "Well, I knew someone who always got them after taking a round of antibiotics for chlamydia and all the other STDs she had."

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

Considering the topic of conversation earlier when I was talking to Nicole, I was very relieved to find that she wasn't the one who started this topic!

I judge how much I can tell someone by both how much I trust them and by the kinds of things they feel comfortable telling me. And, sometimes, by how much I've had to drink.

One of my kind-of friends (she always hung around us, but she was a mega-bitch and we tried to avoid her) used to go on ad nauseam about her and her boyfriend's sex life: positions, amount of spunkage, etc. She couldn't take the hint from our disinterested, vacuous stares that we really weren't interested. It was pretty obvious she was trying to prove a point -- or at least it was after she told us that her boyfriend had had sex with sixty girls and swore that she was the, ahem, 'tightest'.

Thank you so much for telling me that.

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

I often have people who work for me mistake me for a priest, but I never complain or reveal what they say, because, well, I think it comes with the territory. I AM older than they are and never seem shocked at what other people do, so they feel comfortable telling me stuff I really wish they wouldn't.

The one point of intimacy that has always disgusted me (to echo Jackie D) is locker room talk from guys bragging about their conquests. Maybe I'm just not "manly" enough to appreciate these lurid tales of wild copulation, but they've always sorta sickened me. I honestly think they're a real sign of inadequacy unless they're told completely in jest with names, etc left out.

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

There was a woman working here for a few years who was constantly complaining about this ailment or that surgery and on and on. She got graphic with me twice, once describing some problem with her nose and sinuses (ew) and once, in detail, about problems with her uterus and ovaries and why she can't have kids now. Yuck. Why did she have to spill it like that to me? Like I care?!

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

My kindof ex-MIL is quite open about things that would put my family in a state of shock. Out of the blue one day, she said that she had lost all her pubic hair, but her husband still had his. The visual imagery was just too much for me to take. Thank God I wasn't eating, I would of choked for sure. Now, I try to stay a little more prepared for anything.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

Great subject. I'm one of those lovely people who listens patiently so I get a lot of people telling me stuff I'd really rather not know. This girl I know has told me every single dirty little secret that she has; from her afternoon sex phone calls to an old boyfriend who lives far away and she hasn't seen for years to her father's neighbour's cousin who's got a skin ailment. It does make me feel weird because I don't ask her to tell me her secrets and I don't promise to not blab (I don't) but someone's got to listen, eh? Die of boredom or squirm in your seat...

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

I know exactly what you’re talking about. I tried not to be interested in the guy that just moved in downstairs from me, but he was just too relentlessly suspicious – he kept strange hours, I heard strange noises, and he tended to scamper around the sides of the stairwell like a gecko. So I did my best to corner him and see if he was capable of conversation, and guess what? He was just a bit shy – not keen to make the first move. Now he practically leaps out of his door every time I pass. And the things he tells me! OK, he’s a serial killer, that I can live with, but spare me the detail! I don’t REALLY need to know how much this one twitched, or how that one sounded exactly like a guinea pig, and I don’t really think our relationship benefits if he reveals that his saw got caught in the first one’s ribs.

I guess some people were just born tactless.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

I don't even want to repeat the worst, most intimate thing someone has ever told me. Trust me, it was bad. And it was from a coworker. And it involved "nether regions."

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

Oh, way to tease us, Maggie. :-)

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

Maggie-come on! You know we are all dying to know now!

To be honest, strangers telling me personal, intimate details doesn't bother me at all. I've noticed that it seemed to be just a regular part of life growing up in the south-couldn't go to the bathroom without making a new best friend. You know how you're standing next to someone washing your hands and they say something and you say something...and pretty soon you know all about how badly she wants to divorce the philandering bastard she's been married to for 15 years and how lousy the sex is and how much he paid for his toupee?

While I lived in the midwest that I rarely made "bathroom buddies", and now in the northeast it only happens in bars, but back home it's part of life. I actually miss it.

I guess I like to skip over the small talk and go right to the part where you compare best-sex-ever stories.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

People, I really do not need, nor do I want to know your experiences with The Keeper. Really.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

whats a keepper??

ihate when poeeeple tell me there sex lifes! youko! and dont rate your farts. p.u.!!!!

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

Many years ago I lived in a house with a bunch of friends. We were all students. However we had this one chick living with us who wasn't really a friend, just a new room mate. She did and said a lot of crazy things. The worst was how she always went on and on about her problem with genital herpes. And she was constantly bringing home new guys all the time... who now probably have their own trouble with genital herpes. Way too much information.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

Oh, bathroom talkers! Nothing more annoying than trying to pee in private and the person in the stall next to you tries to strike up a conversation.... "Oh, man, that's better!" and "Phew, I didn't think I was gonna make it" and "Hey, do you know what time it is?" and "God, it smells in here".... Just. Shut. UP!

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

The only conversation I want to hear in a bathroom is conversation about the availability or lack thereof of toilet paper, and the reliability or lack thereof of the plumbing. Oh, and if the bathroom I'm about to enter rivals the one in Trainspotting for sheer hideosity, you may, of course, break the news to me in advance. In fact, please do.

But other than spare-a-square requests, I don't want to get all chummy with you in the most germ-laden area in the entire building, nor do I need to know about icky gynecological or intestinal distresses.

And "The Keeper"--avert your eyes now if discussion of bodily functions and, hmm, 'tools of the trade' discomfit you--is a reusable cup you insert in your most personal of places. Supposedly it 'catches' and thus 'keeps' menstrual fluids up in there until it is removed (perhaps messily). Then you sanitize it (one hopes) and pop it back up in there, where it stays--through clever use of ergonomics and sheer force of will, I guess, like a removable IUD--until your cycle is done. Having not seen or tried one myself, you can probably imagine how I came by this knowledge. Public restroom, chatty stallmate, TMI. I GUESS I'm lucky she didn't want to whip it out to rinse it out in the sink and reinsert it in front of me. Just plain gross.

One can be perfectly comfortable with one's own bodily functions, innards and sexual parts without having the slightest desire to hear about someone else's.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

Man, am I glad to read that Bathroom Talking isn't just reserved for men's rooms! There's nothing worse than to be standing at a urinal only about a foot away, if you're lucky, from some other guy with no wall between you at all and he starts talking to you. I find this happens at work a lot, I'm doing my thing at the urinal and someone wants to start asking me business questions. Haven't they ever heard of e-mail?! I've started going into a stall just to pre-empt talkative male co-workers. Oh well, at least they don't discuss personal things.

. o O ( "Hey, does this look infected to you?" )

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2000

Paul, you have no idea how much that made me laugh! I've been wondering for a long time just how intimate the urinal conversations actually get. I know I'm risking ridicule by admitting this, but Men's Bathroom Etiquette is fascinating to me. I've quizzed every man I could get away with quizzing about the "stall vs. urinal", the "where do you stand if there are 4 urinals and 3 men", the "rules change when there's a crowd at the trough" issues. I don't know why I want to know, but for some reason I want to know. It's the knowledge that is kept from us which we find most seductive, I guess.

Please tell me I'm not the only one.

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2000

Robyn, we've also discussed men's bathrooms in the gross stuff: Stall Etiquette thread and the sin: Think Different thread. I'm sure some of you are tired of this, so I'll stop now. :-)

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2000

I had a job as a bartender for about 2 weeks once many years ago and one of the things I had to do at closing time was to go into each bathroom and make sure I wasn't locking someone in the bar. Yhe grafitti in the women's john was MUCH more entertaining than the men's. Why? Who knows?

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2000

I used to work with a girl who told me "guess what! I just found out I have a dermoid cysts!" and then proceeded to show me pics on the web of similar objects. Gross and fascinating at the same time. I was also fascinated that she wasn't too grossed out to talk about it. I guess it appealed to the scientist in both of us. But I have to say, a topic like that has to come from a special person before I don't "head for the hills."

-- Anonymous, December 04, 2000

that keeper thingy sounds neet!!! i think ill get one are they expesive???

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2000

Ask your gynocologist, and then get back to us with the details.

-- Anonymous, December 08, 2000

why millie do you want one to? cant you just ask your own docter?

-- Anonymous, December 14, 2000

That's the point, dumpling. If you want to find out information about a device that goes into your body, including its price and if it is right for you, ask your doctor. Not us.

-- Anonymous, December 15, 2000

whatever millie!!! i thot you rilly wanted to nkow since you asked for me to reprot back to you. why do you care any way if i aksed how much it was?? does it rilly bother you somuch that you have to make some snooty remark dmpling??

-- Anonymous, December 15, 2000

plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose....

-- Anonymous, December 27, 2000