Pizzagirl

You don't think that she might find the things you want to talk about tedious? What's the difference? You're bored with what she wants to talk about; she'd be bored by what you want to talk about. So maybe your conversations are best served by being short and sweet, and losing the "sigh, what you have to say is so tedious" attitude?

Pizzagirl

Maybe that's part of it. I might have fun comparing / contrasting accents with friends from other parts of the country, but I don't want to be feeling as though someone is lecturing to me or giving me a full-blown linguistics lesson. It's ok to have casual talk about concepts without sounding as though one is writing a dissertation.

galoisien

Dissertations are fun things to read -- well-written ones are enjoyable. I always try to present the minimum possible to convey a particular idea.

Haha, but my mother is persistent ... I think she finds it hard to hang up. Even when I was on urgent homework assignments, she always wanted 5 minutes more.

None.

I just don't get why I keep being nagged to have long tete-a-tetes if we both know the fact.

Anyway.

Pizzagirl

OK, so that's your mother. Tell me again why that translates to "adults being passionless and uncurious"? Seems she's plenty curious -- about where you live and how you're doing.

galoisien

Because it's a general, observable trend ... but maybe it could just be me and my friends, hey...

It never feels as though she's being curious about how I'm doing, more like "I'm your mother, give me a status update or I'll call the police".

geek_mom

YDS, I L<3ve you.

That you would make a thread here about it (and keep returning to the subject) says something. Why not find a nice cooking forum, where you might hook up with others who are passionate about the question of vanillin (with various spices) vs vanilla (with the same spices added as a control)? What we have in common here is that we (well, most of us) are parents of high school- to college-aged students. Not that we have passionate opinions on the use of isolated chemicals in baking.

I'm not saying that you can't or shouldn't post on your culinary exploits here... but it seems pretty silly to infer from the responses here that adults are "passionless and uncurious" and our brains must be fossilized. Maybe we're just not that into your topic of choice. If we find common ground, we can have interesting conversations. Same thing with your mom.

By the way, the intricacies of office politics can provide hours of fascination to a dispassionate observer. Sun Tzu and Macchiavelli had nothing on the middle manager with the corner office down the hall.

galoisien

Cooking forums are a bit intimidating, as they seem to be filled with folk with 50-spice spice racks and an arsenal of cooking equipment a poor college student wouldn't be able to afford...

Pizzagirl

Exactly. It begs the question as to whether you have the nuances to understand what conversational topics work in certain settings. The discussion of vanilla vs vanillin might be a great topic when you and your chem-class buddies are studying together or working in the lab together or even sharing a meal together. However, that same discussion doesn't work too well at a frat party :-) or as part of a status update when your mother calls long-distance. Different situations call for different topics. The very fact that you returned to the discussion of v vs v in the midst of a different topic suggests that you may not fully get those nuances.

Do all the people on your floor or apartment at UVA appear as engaged in these topics as you are? Why or why not? Does that make them intellectually incurious, or does that make them normal college-age students who might want to hang out and talk about movies and music and such?

Pizzagirl

That may be, Galoisien, but that doesn't make those of us who couldn't see why you didn't just try each option and move on "intellectually incurious and passionless."

galoisien

Um, I don't know where you're getting the idea that I'm calling people out for being uncurious and passionless because they don't like cooking topics ... I figure a lot of parents care because they care for their own household (and whereas my more affluent peers prefer to eat out apparently).

But no, I'm talking about stuff in general, I don't know why you want to concentrate about a single facet of my interests, and it's not my interests either -- but the interests of my generation in general. (I only defend my interests because I don't think they're that esoteric.)

Adults in general seem pretty uninterested to discuss anything beyond the daily metro, boulot, dodo. I suppose part of it has to do with managing a household -- the whole issue that people become boring when they "settle down". They also seem less enthused to discuss ideas. Unless it's for work, of course.

galoisien

They're pretty engageable actually ... I live at the International Residential College, lots of cool, multilingual, multicultural people -- even applying to those who grew up in Michigan.

Pretty innovative too -- sometimes far more engaged or passionate about their stuff than me. Take say, the finer points of marijuana consumption, where they study the aerodynamic flow between the hallway, their rooms and the windows outside and how it may be altered with fans (miniature, for the window and heavy-duty), wet cloth, careful breaths, temperature distribution in the smoking device etc. in order to ensure the smell of weed is never detected by RAs in the hallway and that minimal blowback occurs.

Not that I myself indulge in the practice. But it's pretty interesting.

It was with them where we talked about the organic synthesis of THC and the importance (or undesirability) of various accessory compounds, including possible routes to genetically remove the major components of the smell of weed (to prevent detection) without removing the desirable compounds. The problem, we concluded, was funding and lack of appropriate capital, but this wouldn't necessarily be an insurmountable problem because there are other ways to raise capital...

And there are other plethoras of knowledge that college students indulge in to maximise their enjoyment of course, not necessarily involving chemistry. But a lot of adults wouldn't seem to share the same innovativeness, even if it didn't involve risque pursuits like pharmacologically-active substances.

owlice

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! No, you don't. Your posts exhibit logorrhea. The bottom line is that you are fascinated with *yourself* and wonder why everyone else isn't as fascinated with *you* as *you* are. (Frankly, I find a lot of your posts whiny and childish.)

Adults learned long ago what you are just figuring out. Many just aren't interested in rehashing what to them is now well-established knowledge; they have moved on to other interests. Those ideas that you want to discuss? Many adults have already had those conversations. Just because something is new to you doesn't mean it's new to adults.

I talk about my passions with those who share them, not with random strangers on a board devoted to an entirely different topic. Maybe you should consider doing the same.

sax

Forgive me for not reading the thread and if this has alresdy been said:

I am a counselor surrounded by engineers. Almost all of them live in the now and can't for the life of them answer questions about how they are feeling etc. It's just not in their make-up. Their brains just don't work like that. So give mom a bit of a break and get that need in your life elsewhere. She is most likely not withholding or not interested in you. It may be just the way she is. I get my emotional support from my friends. Took me 40 yrs to learn this about my engineer family.

VeryHappy

The title of this thread is: "Why do adults seem to be passionless and uncurious?"

The real title of this thread should be: "I wish my mother and I got along better, that I felt closer to her, and that I felt she was interested in me."

Northstarmom

VeryHappy,
You are right, and we all could help the OP by answering the question that you stated. Thank you for having such compassion and empathy.