|
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2009 20:47:28 GMT
The title is the title of a post from the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree forum.
It is a recurring problem for people who travel:
Why are our friends, family and colleagues often so disinterested in our travels or our desire to travel?
They will talk about changing the oil in their car, buying a new carpet or seeing a stray dog in the neighborhood, but often they will change the subject if you start talking about going to the other side of the world and seeing new and different things.
Why is that?
|
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Apr 26, 2009 21:14:28 GMT
Are they threatened by the fact that traveling implies a certain courage in a person?
Are they so unimaginative that conversation about travel is boring and unreal to them?
A friend of mine once said to me, as we were viewing her photos from a trip to Guatemala, that I'm the only person she knows who really looks at other people's pictures. That's pretty sad.
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2009 21:17:33 GMT
I do indeed believe that there is a certain discomfort about going towards the unknown.
"Normal" people don't do that. "Normal" people are happy to stay in the neighborhood.
|
|
|
|
Post by spindrift on Apr 26, 2009 21:40:07 GMT
I find the same thing. I now do not offer to show my photos to family and friends because mostly they are not interested. They simply don't care to know how people live in other parts of the world. I have no idea why that is. When I travel I am fascinated by everything I see. In retrospect I should have been an anthropologist.
The fact that I'm learning Japanese only provides an occasion to make fun of me.
|
|
|
|
Post by Jazz on Apr 26, 2009 21:44:37 GMT
I think that all of the above are true, depending on the listener. But I also think that some people desperately want to travel and are (or, feel) trapped by circumstance...lack of money, children too young, poor health etc. They feel badly and perhaps think it will never happen for them. Thus, they shut down.
It is totally disappointing to be excited about your trip and after the obligatory 'how was it?', to have the conversation turned within five minutes to the dog, the 'whatever'. Because of this, I choose carefully with whom I bother to discuss my travels. One infamous remark I remember was, 'What in god's name could you find to do in Paris for a month?' (ummm, I would like at least a year in Paris to discover the answer to this.)
Like you, Bixa, I love to look at others' photos and to listen to their anecdotes.
|
|
|
|
Post by spindrift on Apr 26, 2009 21:51:22 GMT
Blow me down! I logged-off, got onto my email and found this comment about my learning Japanese -
"Ah so, honourable Nipponese speaker. Isn't that a rather 1980s thing to study?"
This illustrates my point.
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2009 21:58:52 GMT
Jeez!
I will never understand the need of some people to disparage what interests others.
|
|
|
|
Post by Jazz on Apr 26, 2009 22:07:34 GMT
Blow me down! I logged-off, got onto my email and found this comment about my learning Japanese - "Ah so, honourable Nipponese speaker. Isn't that a rather 1980s thing to study?" This illustrates my point. Your every word obviously fascinates this person!  I admire your study of Japanese. err...does your secret fan not understand that people have studied the language for hundreds of years? Certainly before 1980. |
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Apr 26, 2009 22:34:13 GMT
;D Perhaps they think Paris doesn't have a mall. I guess the "1980s" comment was a reference to when Japan was the business giant to whom all paid obeisance. So, Japanese had a commercial value.  |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2009 5:23:54 GMT
There is indeed a certain category of people who look at the world exclusively from a financial point of view and seem to know nothing about personal enrichment... or else they considered the idea and discarded it, because it slowed them down from making more money.
|
|
|
|
Post by spindrift on Apr 27, 2009 6:52:06 GMT
Jazz - I hadn't really considered him as a 'secret fan' but it's possible. He's been in the sidelines since he met me in Johannesburg many years ago. This is his way of asking me out
"I feel a curious urge to see Spring Awakening, which would clearly need a desirable companion. "
Weirdo.
But he is the only person I know who has been on that marvellous cruise from southern England to St. Helena and the Ascensions!
He's a Wykehamist scholar much given to a turned phrase.
|
|
|
|
Post by Kimby on Apr 27, 2009 17:07:57 GMT
For some people, if travel isn't about beaches, bars and food, it isn't of interest to them.
So sad.
|
|
|
|
Post by gyro on May 6, 2009 4:58:24 GMT
Aside from the people that ridicule, criticise, or pour scorn on any travelling tales, I thing it's pompous and conceited to assume that travelling somehow makes you a 'better' type of person than those that don't. It's as discriminatory, deluded and sententious to think that someone who's not into travel is any different from someone, for example, that doesn't like cheese where you do. It's all about personal choice.
I see this sort of pretentious attitude far more in the travelling world than most other Worlds Of Interest, for want of a better phrase ..
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on May 6, 2009 5:23:51 GMT
I see what you're saying, but I think the regret is based on discovering how many people are not open to new things and just want to talk about the same old stuff all the time.
When you talk about travel, you can be talking about everything -- transportation difficulties, strange people you encountered, food, illness, trivia learned, adjusting to different rules, etc... so it is never a boring subject in itself, depending on how it is talked about.
That's what makes it frustrating when you want to talk about something new and the person you're talking to makes it clear "my only subject of conversation is football."
Yes, I know -- there's no reason to bother talking to such people unless you are in a mood to talk about football, but most 'one-subject' people are so limited that they manage to make even that boring in return.
|
|
|
|
Post by gyro on May 6, 2009 13:19:34 GMT
Yeah, but even that is being a bit superior and one dimensional in itself. Sure, there ARE people who only ever talk about one thing, but they're not the norm.
For example, I know plenty of people that have many different interests, but aren't at all fascinated by longbows. Doesn't bother me; I don't talk to them about it anymore. But it also does NOT make them somehow less cultured or open for pity or ridicule either.
And the whole beach thing does get rather snobbish too. I can't stand to be in a foreign country and be on a beach for more than about 2 hours. But I can appreciate those that happily spend all week there. If you're not interested in history or other stuff, it doesn't necessarily make you ignorant either.
|
|
|
|
Post by username199 on May 7, 2009 2:36:18 GMT
These are the same people who are astonished that I, at the age of 65, single, female, told them I was going to a foreign country. "You are going ALONE", they asked. Yep. "Do you know anyone there?". Nope. One of the greatest trips I have even taken and before I left I knew half the population there !!! Ah, the joys of travel. And the sadness of the ignorant.
|
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on May 7, 2009 3:09:51 GMT
Love it, UN199! Admittedly, I have had fun travelling with other people at times, but sometimes I think the only good reason to go with someone else is so there is a person to watch your luggage when you need to pee.
I like it when people are kind of sputtering their shock about a woman going alone but they won't come out & say it because I'm giving them that look, just daring them to say it.
|
|
|
|
Post by gyro on May 7, 2009 5:21:40 GMT
Oh dear, still snobs I see ....
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on May 7, 2009 13:01:41 GMT
I believe Jazz's take on this is right on. I will add that ignorance is a major factor as well. I remember a nurse I worked with who upon discussing a colleague of ours going to Africa actually made the statement'"why would anyone want to go to Africa?"
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on May 7, 2009 13:26:21 GMT
Oh, I've heard lines like that so often!
Once in my life, I met someone who had trained himself not to make negative comments (no, it wasn't gyro). Instead of saying things like "I don't like artichokes," he would say instead "I haven't learned to appreciate artichokes yet." It was hilariously stilted yet so much nicer to listen to than people who say "how could you possibly like such a thing?"
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on May 7, 2009 15:05:17 GMT
I have a particularly difficult time with hiding my facial expressions. While I'm responding verbally "gee,well, I guess perhaps because...",my face reads,"you stupid bitch..."
It was one of the things I had to really,really work on while a therapist. I had a mentor who gave me videos to watch of people able to mask to some degree what they're thinking aloud.
It is definitely a learned technique. But, I digress again.
|
|
|
|
Post by gyro on May 7, 2009 18:52:40 GMT
Kerouac, if you took the time to read rather than snipe like a twat then you'd realise I was making a point. An opinion, if you will. But I do realise how impossible it is for you to listen to an opinion that contrasts with your own without getting silly, reactionary and negative yourself.
Ironically, I find that quite ignorant. Funny ole world, innit ?
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on May 7, 2009 20:33:35 GMT
Are you mistaking your mirror for me?
In any case, I am not the center of the world, so your infatuation with everything I say is somewhat disturbing.
|
|
|
|
Post by gyro on May 8, 2009 4:49:44 GMT
Ha ha, 'infatuation', really ?
Oh dear oh dear, you really need to get over yourself ....
|
|
|
|
Post by Jazz on May 8, 2009 13:53:24 GMT
...top secret photo of Kerouac and Gyro...  |
|
|
|
Post by gyro on May 8, 2009 23:02:20 GMT
Thank god your camera lens wasn't wide enough to include the leather and the nipple clamps .....
|
|
|
|
Post by Kimby on May 21, 2009 2:54:26 GMT
I'm constantly amazed at gyro's (over)reactions to Kerouac's (not so)innocent postings.
|
|
|
|
Post by Kimby on May 21, 2009 3:00:25 GMT
I thing it's pompous and conceited to assume that travelling somehow makes you a 'better' type of person than those that don't... I wouldn't choose the word "better" but I would say that travel broadens one's horizons, both literally and figuratively, and makes one more informed about the world we live in - and the other people and cultures who share this world with us. It's harder to be self-centered when you've spent time in other countries whose citizens are perfectly happy to be where they are, and that not everyone longs to be an American or Brit or whatever the French call themselves... |
|
|
|
Post by traveler63 on Aug 9, 2009 1:49:43 GMT
Old thread but I want to add my two cents worth.
People who have no desire to travel are ones who have not an inquisitive mind, they seek only what is tactilely around them. and so they are happy to be in their own little world. They don't read much and they have no interest in history. I would say that they are superficial people living in a superficial world and that's okay. So, if they don't want to see my pictures or hear about the trip, I just say it was beautiful and we had a great time and leave it at that.
|
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Aug 9, 2009 1:56:53 GMT
Funny you brought this thread up, T63. I recently listened in on a conversation between two young women about trying to tell the folks back home of their travels. Both had experienced starting a sentence about some travel related thing, only to be quickly cut off by their listener with "Oh -- I already know about that from your blog". Both of these women seemed intelligent, thoughtful, and humorous so it did smack of people simply not wanting to know about their travels.
|
|
