Is it normal for a 40 year old man to hang out in the cemetery?

Any 40-year-old who takes a ton of selfies, regardless of where they do it, is unhinged.

Taking selfies? Like at the graves? Or just because it's scenic and peaceful. My sister walks through a cemetery to keep fit. No traffic. Quiet.

I'm guessing he still thinks he's a goth high schooler in 1994.

It's just a place, OP. But it's weird to be taking numerous selfies at age forty. You sure he's that self-obsessed, or is he actually taking photos of the graves, headstones and placques because he's doing research?

It's not normal for anyone to "hangout" at a cemetary.

Some people into ancestry/genealogy research work on documenting headstones, as they often have names of the spouses, dates of bieth and death, and possibly info on other family members. It’s called cemetary crowdsourcing.

of course

to commune with the spirits of the dead is to live

in dark glamour...

R6) So true.

I discovered my uncle's gravesite by a person doing that.

[quote]of course. to commune with the spirits of the dead is to live. in dark glamour...

Dark Lesbian!

Leave him alone. Such busy-bodies. 🧟‍♀️

🧟‍♂️

Try another dating app OP. He sounds like one cheap date.

she ruled the balls...

now she head bitch of the cemetary....

Cemeteries are peaceful and quiet. They are great places, oddly enough, to celebrate life. Plus, to a person with imagination and curiosity, cemeteries are thought provoking and inspiring.

Not everyone’s cup of tea, of course, but not perverted at all, unless you are digging up bodies or hiding behind tombstones.

The selfie stuff would be weird, though.

Cemetery tourism is big business, especially in Europe where the graves are much older and often have royal connections.

Is his name Barnabas? Is he professing undying devotion for someone named Josette while eyeballing Joe Haskell's package?

Normally, I might have said it’s not normal. Having known people who are now in cemeteries, I’ve noticed some take comfort in the serenity of it. I had a high school English teacher who explained the historical significance of a nearby cemetery. It was during a poetry semester. We spent a week of that class going to that cemetery to find inspiration (I suppose) in the poetry and Haikus on the stones.

It's positively de rigueur, comme il faut, at Pere Lachaise. Oscar Wilde would be offended otherwise.

It's not strange at all. I'm a great lover of cemeteries. An old friend of mine and I used to scout out old cemeteries many years ago. They're very peaceful places. I've always wanted to own a home right next to a small cemetery.

I used to take photos of gravestones, aesthetically they can be quite pleasing.

I used to walk through cemeteries when in my teens. Especially older ones in the northeast. It was interesting, reading the gravestones, wondering who they were, especially when you note that the person died when they were a child. You wonder what happened? Was it illness, an accident?Stuff like that.

I wandered into one cemetery in Connecticut, once. I spent about two hours, just walking around, reading headstones. It was late spring, and just a beautiful day. Anyhow, I went back to my aunt’s house, where we were staying for the weekend, & I went into my room for a nap. I had one of those twilight sleep dreams, where you’re half asleep, and feel half awake, giving you the sensation of body paralysis, you know?

In my dream, about 30 dead people had walked in my bedroom, and they all stood around my bed. They all had questions. They asked me my name, what was I looking for? What time did I come from? What year? How old was I? Did I have any questions for them?

They were all dressed in different clothing, from different periods. Some were dressed in clothing from the 1800s, and some were dressed in clothing from the 1950s. Men, women, and children.

It was one of the three strangest and most realistic dreams that I have ever had, mostly because it felt so real and it felt as if I was awake and heard them open the bedroom door that led to the backyard, which led to the cemetery, I heard their feet on the hardwood floors, and then watched them gather around my bed.

It was very benevolent, and non threatening. They were as curious about me, as I had been about them.

Anyhow, OP. Cemeteries can be a good place for people to become acquainted with their own mortality, selfies aside. They’re also quite peaceful, and tend to be very beautiful. One of my best frau friends actually got married in one. Forest Lawn, in Los Angeles. The wedding was quite lovely, & very inexpensive, compared to other venues.

weird ass. into the occult.

dark side of the mooon

Taking selfies, OP you're just another narcissist get over yourself you're not getting any younger or prettier.

R5, it is not weird for some people to hang out in cemeteries. It isn't weird for dead people.

It’s not NORMAL (as in, something most people do) but I wouldn’t say it’s pathological.

I think they’re fascinating from an anthropological viewpoint. Where I grew up there was a really grand and picturesque cemetery a few blocks away. We’d walk or ride our bikes there because there were no cars speeding around, and it was very quiet and beautiful. There’s a small graveyard near our weekend home that has markers from the 1700s and some of the names are on local streets and place names. It’s nice to think that we’re speaking the names of people who are long gone.

Selfies are a bit much.

I avoid them ever since I was 16 and got high on weed in a cemetery. I'd never been high before and we were under a bush next to a tombstone. When I realized I was stoned, I got totally freaked out and ran for the car.

I used to do stone rubbings of old gravestones and then take them to art class and use them as a source of inspiration. It's interesting to read about the years of their deaths and try to find patterns and such. People never used to name their kids until the age of two, infant mortality being so high. I thought it was just me until I mentioned it offhandedly to my doctor and he did the same thing as a hobby (minus the rubbings).

As to the selfies- I'm alive and you're not! NaNa NaNaNa! The

Partying in cemeteries is the best!

Maybe he lives in a shitty neighbourhood and can't afford to move so going to the cemetery is the only place he can find quiet and solitude from pot smokers and dogs and adults and kids and music and phones and traffic etc.

I love cemeteries. So beautiful.

Lake View Cemetery, Cleveland

I had an artsy friend who was totally obsessed with cemetaries for a while when we we're teenagers - her "goth period." Anyway while taking a photography class, she asked the parents of the kids she babysat if they minded if she used their kids for models for a portraiture study she was doing. They all agreed- thought it would be "charming". Little did they know she was super-imposing the portraits on the images of tombstones. True story.

Are you dating an Aghori, OP?

I love cemeteries. But I also love golf courses. Same kind of thing.

Lots of dead white people R35?

was good enuf for Lord Byron

ok with me then.

I like them. They make me feel comfortable.

There’s a really good deli at the entrance to the cemetery where my parents are buried. A few times a year, I’ll stop by the deli, pick up lunch, drive over to the family plot, pull a folding chair out of my trunk and have my lunch.

I’m not religious at all and have no belief in an afterlife, but I find these lunches oddly comforting.

don't criticize what you don't understand......

They were like parks to the Victorians. They'd sometimes picnic in them.

He's my friends boyfriend and he doesn't work. Sometimes he plays Xbox or he'll go hang out at the cemetery for hours and post his selfies on Instagram. I love cemeteries too and often go for walks in them but I try to be discreet. I think it's in poor taste to be showy. What if somebody went to visit a family member and saw you posing with their tombstone?

just texting with buds, prolly

r30 is your friend 90? He really needs to escape pot and those damn kids and their crazy music. Why doesn't he just stay home?

Some cemeteries are considered important historic sites. In a city near me, the city tried to sell an old cemetery to real estate developers, but there was a public outcry because it was historic and scenic. Because the city's legal team tried to argue that nobody visited the cemetery and it was "disused", volunteers organized to care for the old graves and keep the place up. I talked with one of the volunteers, she was recovering from personal losses and found her gravekeeping hobby to be comforting for many reasons, and got her out of the house when that was a problem for her.

So yes, sane people can spend time in cemeteries, I myself have been known to birdwatch there. But taking tons of selfies? That's just fucking weird.

[quote]There’s a really good deli at the entrance to the cemetery where my parents are buried.

Right at the entrance to the cemetery, really?

... Is it a Jewish cemetery?

R42 judging by your description there, the cemetery thing is the least of this guy's issues. Does your friend support him financially?

He sounds like a loser

we have lunch on daddi's grave once a week. And bring him his pint of whiskey. Good Times. Cemetarys are beautiful with trees, flowers, hedges, birds and a pond nearby.

R46, not all cemeteries are rural. My FIL is buried in Brooklyn, and there are tons of business right outside the cemetery gates. You can buy cigarettes, a newspaper, food, tires, a car. Interestingly, it IS a Jewish cemetery and it’s not custom to leave flowers on the gravestones. You leave small stones. So there aren’t a ton of florists.

It depends on where the cemetery is.

I thought most city cemeteries had a shop near the entrance, as R50 described. The cemeteries around here all 'accommodate' bodies from various religions , so I'm not sure that spiritual beliefs determine whether their visitors get thirsty or need flowers.