Why do some people tell the same stories over and over again to the same audience?

Wow, harsh.
I do this sometimes. I get caught up in the moment and I forget I have told it before to some people. Probably has something to do with some memory blips caused by chemo brain and, now, post-Covid brain fog. And sometimes just cuz it fits in to the conversation and I don’t recall telling it before. My friends never express annoyance, they just remind me that they’ve heard it before.

Really, that’s why.

My family is pretty sure my dad wants to torture us. Lol.

I think sometimes it is because they don’t remember, but I think mostly it is because the person thinks it is important and trying to drive a point home.

Another reason the person might be needy and wants to stay in a conversation. Kind of like keeping a fight going for the interaction.

A story I have told a lot, but I don’t know who I have told, I usually start the story with, “stop me if I told you this before…”

My guess is that it is a combination of the first two in the list. If they think the story is important or interesting, they could refer to the story without repeating it, perhaps summarizing a part of it,

There are many reasons: brain fog due to medication or Covid, dementia, Alzheimer’s, or maybe they forget who they told the story to because they talk to so many people.
I try to be kind and listen again because that might be me repeating stories some day.

Either because it was received so well the first time and is relevant to the situation, or they’ve forgotten they’ve told it to those particular people. I may repeat it once or twice, but after that I can usually remember that I’ve told it.

My FIL did this on a regular basis and it was very trying. I think he just liked the attention and ‘stage’. We all just humored him. The worst part wasn’t hearing the same story, it was that he was southern and not only spoke very slowly, but also with a thick accent. Every get-together guaranteed he would do this. But he was a dear man and I wouldn’t have hurt his feelings for anything.

I gave this a GQ because I was thinking the same thing and was going to ask something similar a few months ago.

I know two people that do this a lot. One, when she is going through problems, will talk to a handful of people almost every day, almost like therapy. She will call and talk about updates (she’s going through divorce) and then she will rehash the past. When she talks about other people, she’ll rehash stories from the past, or gossip about the people. She’s about 70 so I don’t think of it as a dementia situation, I think of it as she’s needy. I listen and a lot of it is interesting. While she’s talking, I can do other things in the house and listen intently. She tends to be funny so it’s enjoyable, although can be time consuming.

Another person I know that does this is an elderly lady where I live. Almost every time I see her, she will tell me about how her husband’s family has been here for the past two hundred years, and how her grandson is the fifth generation going to the public school. She will tell me about how when one of her kids was in the elementary school and the school was trying to teach the kids their address and phone number, her kid didn’t know and the school administrator told her it was a problem. She very proudly told me how she told the school admin that the kid didn’t need to know that info because the neighbor worked in the school, the kid knew the firemen, the kid had all these close connections, yada yada yada. She seems so proud when she talks about this so I act like I never heard it and it’s fascinating to me. She’s in her late 70s. I’m not sure if she is just proud of the stories and forgets she told them, or if it’s a bit of dementia.

Sounds like you just had a tedious experience with someone, Jeruba! I know I sometimes do that with my sons because I think my stories are so apt for the situation.

I teach 6–7 classes per semester across four different schools. My lectures and demonstrations always spark anecdotal stories. I sometimes can’t remember if I’ve told them before to the same students of not. I’ll warn students at the beginning of the semester to stop me if they’ve heard it before.

I’m not that old or in any kind of cognitive decline. Just too much information coming in and going out to keep track of everything.

Some of us may do it because otherwise we would have nothing to say.

I am in my late sixties but my girlfriend has only really known me for nine years. So in my mind she was not present for my first 58 years and does not know much of my life. But we have been together long enough now that she will interrupt me with “yes, I know, you have tole me.”

My aunt’s husband used to say she should just number the stories, and instead of telling them, over and over, she could just say “Story # 31.” haha

Yes
Yes
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More than likely. One cannot remember everyone they told their epic stories to.

My mom had gradually worsening dementia and she would often talk about old stories, but I loved to hear about them! And frequently we would have a conversation on both our parts where we talked about how we used to go to the ocean for the week and other fond memories. I’m sure we touched on them more than once and neither of us cared because they were such good memories.

^^ I wish my sister liked to reminisce. She’s the only real family I have left, but only very occasionally will she talk about when we were growing up, and it’s always when I say something like, “Remember how Mom used to…”. It makes me sad because I have no one else to remember things with, and my friends wouldn’t appreciate it like family would.

Thanks for all comments.

I belong to a small group that meets every week. When one member shares his thoughts, it’s always the same story about how his two marriages ended, and what happened with his son, often told in the same words and using the same pat phrases. His recital takes up to ten minutes each time, including the preachy part, but he has a compact version when time is shorter. The core group has heard it literally hundreds of times, and he knows it. Trying to be compassionate toward him, I still can’t help wondering what is the intention behind the oppressive repetition.

While he is the prime example, I do know a number of people who tend to relate the same experience or opinion again and again. I feel as if it would help me be more patient if I knew what makes them do that.

Reminiscing with family, now, that’s a different matter entirely: generally expected and welcome. It also doesn’t usually happen once a week, same person, same story.

@Jeruba Is there a facilitator in the group who can tactfully get him to shorten it?

@janbb It’s pretty informal, but…he would be it.

^^ Dang. You could talk to him privately then and ask him why he feels the need to go over the same ground but that would require quite a bit of assertiveness.

@janbb Yeah. I phrased my question generally because he’s not the only one. For instance, I have a good friend who apparently talks to a lot of people about all the upsets in her life, just as @jca2 described, and she has to tell each one the same story, maybe more than once. But that is not the same same story; there’s a new one all the time. This guy runs through the same narrative week after week, year after year. And he owns the Zoom.

Maybe he ruminates a lot about those things and very emotional about them, so he compulsively tells the story again and again. Everything triggers his mind back to that story.

I think it’s nice that you let him tell it over and over again.

He probably would be good to get some therapy to unstick his thoughts, but if he otherwise functions ok I would ignore it.

If it’s some kind of support group, it might be appropriate to gently ask in the group why he feels the need to recount these facts every week?

I was just listening to Hidden Brain (podcast) – “Are Your Memories Real?” One takeaway was that our memories are mostly constructed from observation, suggestion, and a bit or fiction. Over time they fade or change and the best defense against losing them entirely is repetition. Perhaps this person fears forgetting as they are really important to them. Thus the constant repetition in a space they feel safe in.

@janbb I’ve been wondering if there’s a way to let someone know that this story has been told before without them getting offended. I’ve been thinking about that with the woman where I live, who tells me about the generations in her family who have attended the public school, etc., reminding her that I’ve heard this story before, but I don’t know if it’s worth the hassle, or easier to just smile and act like it’s new news.

@jca2 I think it may depend on the age and mental acuity of the person who keeps repeating. If they are old or suffering from alzheimer’s, there would be no point in telling them. However, I have had friends who have said to me, “Yeah, you told me that already” and I to them and it is not offensive.

@jca2, Here is something that I thought of, but it may also be offensive. What if you break into the story and say then this happened and then that happened. Then you can say that you think you heard the story before. That way you are giving evidence that you already know the story, and you can also say you liked the story, especially one particular part.

@cookieman it’s almost a throwback to centuries and centuries ago when people didn’t really keep written records of things, or not much, and so they had this oral tradition of passing down the stories. Those stories were no doubt repeated again and again so that they would become cemented in people’s memories and so that younger kids could begin to learn them as well.

@LifeQuestioner: Yes, good comparison.

My mom does this. I think she doesn’t want me to forget.