"You told me that already."

On Repeating Oneself

One of the more annoying phrases in current American parlance is, "You told me that already."   For me, it's a conversation killer.
Everyone repeats themselves.  If you have a good story, you tend to tell it to more than one person.  It's not a personality disorder to forget the names of everyone you have already told the story to.  Paradoxically, the ones most-likely to call you on repetition are, themselves, the worst repetition offenders. 

  I have politely listened, for the second or third time, to some tedious story about some former neighbor's niece's cocker-poodle who desperately needed a kidney transplant.    Shouting "Yes, you already told me that." seems like an unnecessary rebuke.  Si I sit quietly, nodding at the appropriate junctures,  not interrupting, until the tedious end. 

Because I understand that it is therapeutic for you to tell this story, I smile and nod. Rather than embarrassing you with an interjected, "You told me that already,"  I let you tell the story beginning to end, again, up to and including the solemn ceremony placing of little Max's ashes in an urn on the mantle.


Perhaps the motives of the person informing you that you are repeating yourself are completely innocent.  Perhaps they just want to let you know that they were indeed listening the first time you told them that joke or anecdote.  In my opinion, they are just being rude. 

The thought occurs that maybe the solution for me is to get out and meet more new people who have not heard any of my fascinating stories and knee-slapper jokes already.