SIR – We have a lot of characters in this country who approach or accost people to engage them in long and impertinent conversations. Very often, they barely know the people they target and essentially interview anybody anywhere they see fit, about what can be private business.
These characters can pop up anywhere and waste no time talking to a person in an overly-familiar and invasive fashion. Often they volunteer information about themselves so they get information they want because their nose is at them.
They will also behave as if they have not seen a person in a long time when they come across them as an excuse — though this may not be the case — and go over the same ground again and again of drilling them with a litany of inappropriate questions.
They are so arrogant and cynical they take umbrage at being asked questions, as they carry on with their tiresome and tedious routine.
Inquiry after inquiry, question after question, probe after probe, they stop you dead in the street and talk about your business as if it was their very own.
Nothing will stop them as they zealously inquire about family members — remembering all the while that you barely know them, or haven’t a clue who they are!
They use all types of techniques to approach people they don’t know. They will tell you they know a family relative or family members, which to their mind, gives them the right to plough into your affairs and begin a life-long friendship or acquaintance-ship.
It is mind-blowing to realise that they might know your name or have all kinds of personal information about you, but you don’t know theirs or anything else about them. These people have a high nuisance value and are bothersome in the extreme, as they stop you dead in your tracks for long nauseating conversations with god-knows-who?
We seem to have people in our lives who really shouldn’t be there and it would be far better if they were not there. A high number of people can be heard saying ‘you can’t get away from them,’ referring to the hail-fellow-well-met characters. A simple ‘hi’ and ‘hello’ seems to be beyond them.
The question should be asked —who the hell are these people and what do they really want?
Maurice Fitzgerald,
Shanbally,
Co Cork.
