Dealing with conversational monopolizers

In My Humble Opinion
1

I expect we’ve all been in a situation with a person or persons who would didn’t understand the concept of conversation. Maybe they felt they had to fill the silence. Maybe they found their own lives so endlessly fascinating that they had to share. Maybe they were nervous talkers. Maybe they were just jerks.

It’s tough when it’s your boss, an older relative, a customer, or someone you need to maintain a relationship with. Those are the times you pretty much just grin and bear it, or fake a heart attack. But it’s equally bad when it’s a social situation where you have no easy escape.

Not too long ago, I met such a person. From what I’d learned about her before we met, I thought we might become friends. After all, we were fairly close in age, she was educated, and we seemed to have similar interests. Unfortunately, she would not shut up! She might interrupt her monologue long enough to ask a question, but I soon discovered it was just her way of steering the conversation to something else she wanted to talk about.

“Have you ever been to <place>?”
“Yes, we were there last summ…”
“I LOVE going there!!! We try to make it every year, sometimes twice a year, and we always stay in this adorable little inn run but the dearest fellow from <country> - we traveled there 3 years ago and happened to be there during <famous event> and I swear, I’ll never forget it. The crowds were <and on and on and on>”

It got to the point where I had to turn to the person next to me and ask a totally unrelated question in the hopes of silencing the chatterbox. Yeah, right… I was so grateful when another of the party managed a version of “Oh, will you look at the time!” and suddenly everyone had some place to be.

Similarly, many many years ago, my husband and I went out with another couple - I worked with the woman and I thought an evening out would be fun. I didn’t realize that this couple had a schtick or twelve. They’d launch into these routines that were obviously part of their repertoire and we were expected to laugh appreciatively. The only thing that saved us was I was heavily pregnant, so I could legitimately beg fatigue and end the evening a bit early. Otherwise, we might have remained a captive audience for several more hours.

More recently, a man was coming over to see my husband, and he was a talker - master of tangents. We agreed ahead of time that after about 10 minutes (the man was just dropping something off) that I’d stick my head in the garage and say “Honey - your mom is on the phone!” That was a stroke of genius! :smiley:

Have you suffered similar situations? Did you discover a way to escape before you screamed “SHUT THE F*** UP!!!” and started throwing things? Have you used technology or an accomplice to make your escape? Have you ever directly addressed the individual? Any tips to share?

2

I know a lady, she has decided I am her new BFF, she is so full of crap I cannot stand to be in her company for more than 3 min., recently I just turn and walk away, but I don’t need to have a relationship with her. The way I deal with my scene stealing sister, whose life is a giant drama, is I one-up her. If her boss broke his leg, I say well, my friend had to have his leg amputated. This goes on til she has no more drama to relate, and she shuts up. But a boss or colleague, Idk what you could do, other than avoiding them. That doesn’t seem do-able.

3

I used to work with a guy who could talk for an hour without taking a breath, there was no way to jump in and change direction or step out politely, you just had to walk away.

4

I started a thread about this very thing a while back.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=825101

Last Thursday, this person was there, and this time, her monologue was about all her surgeries and how she reacts to anesthesia. Because this is a very sensitive topic to me that hits a little too close to home right now, I simply decided to leave - not long after two other people did the same thing, much sooner than I suspect they had planned to do so.

:smack:

5

My mom is a monologist, but she’s a widow and until fairly recently, she lived alone, so I know she got lonely. Plus you really can’t tell your mom to shut up. I just figure when I call, I’ll just sit and listen.

6

I’ve met a couple of those. And, yeah. You just shrug and wander off. There is no “there” there. Decent conversationalists take turns.

7

“I’m getting a drink”
“I need to talk to…”
“My husband is calling”
“I’ll be right back”
“Ooh, look at the time”
“What’s that over there?”
“I need to stop the kids from burning down the house”

Turn and walk away.

8

“Excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom/loo/drop the kids off at the pool, re-home a brown trout.”

Or in one case I stopped nodding and opened up my Kindle and got back to reading whatever story I had on it. It was better than biting my tongue or going on a tirade against a racist.

9

One day a Chatty Kathy at work had me corned in my cubicle. I was miserable. And then my stomach began churning so bad I think even she could hear it.

“Sorry, Chatty! I gotta go to the bathroom NOW!”

Never in my life have I been so happy to have diarrhea. I think I smiled all the way to the toilet.

10

What is this “walking away” everyone is speaking of? The yappers in my life will follow you and continue talking.

11

My sister is like this. Not obnoxious or jerkish really but she has a tendency to go on and on and eventually gets lost in the weeds of what she was saying, whereupon she comes up for air and stops for a minute or two. She is, to some degree, aware of it, and does try to ask real questions about me when we are together, but it typically doesn’t last long.

Since she is the older of us two siblings this is the only way I remember her being. Perhaps needless to say, I ended up being the quiet one, to the point where I have very poor conversation skills with new people. I don’t hold this against her, my considered opinion is that it is some kind of defense mechanism against feelings of inadequacy.

What I do about it is to listen as best I can and try to ask pertinent questions as appropriate. Eventually I get worn down and end up contributing a lot of “Oh?” and “I see” fillers. I am usually glad to get back to my own solo company after a visit with her.

12

My mother’s pretty bad for that. She’s gradually got worse over time, though she doesn’t live alone, and she’s still working pretty much full time, so I can only expect it’ll get worse.

I dealt with it by moving several hundred miles away, and only phoning when I have my laptop or something to play with when she goes off on a particularly uninteresting monologue, or one she’s told me multiple time before, or one from when I was there when it happened…

When I went to Australia years back, I took a few weeks going round Southeast Asia on the way where there were no payphones, then called my parents from the backpackers’ in Sydney. The conversation literally went:

Me: ‘Hiya!’
Her: ‘Ooh, thanks for calling, I’ll be really quick, it’s probably very expensive to phone!’
Me: ‘Actually, it’s really cheap, I got a phone card, and it works out as less than 1p a minute. I was surprised as well!’
Her: 'Oh! That is cheap, well, a lot of stuff’s happened since you left…

(spoiler- it hadn’t)

She then talked non stop for over 30 minutes. I timed it. She’s gone through what was flowering in the back garden, told me how next door’s dog was getting on, before finally asking ‘So, you got to Australia OK then?’

The temptation was really high to reply that no, I was actually calling from Indonesia because someone slipped something in my bag, I swear, but the embassy had managed to get me one phone call, and could I borrow some money for a really good lawyer…?

Her Dad did had used to do exactly the same thing only even worse, so I’m concerned it’ll happen to me too. Rabbit, rabbit. Maybe it already has, and I just don’t realise.

I’ve got a friend who does the same thing, it can pretty annoying, though I can normally tune it out when there really is no content or no new content. She’s lovely otherwise and our mutual friend group have got good at rescuing people who get cornered. I’ve long been tempted to introduce her to my Mum, just to see what happens.

13

I’m a nurse and we often get patients who can talk the hind leg off a donkey. We rescue each other by going to the door and telling the trapped nurse that we need help with something, or fake a phone call from a doctor😀

14

If I can just interrupt your thread for a second.

It was a really long OP but it sounds like you are a caring person who doesn’t want to offend anyone.

I remember my parents used to tell long rambling stories and one would interrupt the other. It was horrible to witness and always made me wish that I’d been born an orphan.

Anyway it was nice reading the bit of the OP that I did read but I have to go now.

15

I’ve actually used a technique that I learned, I think, from Miss Manners. It is designed for interrupters, but most long-talkers tend to be interrupters as well, so I think it applies.

When interrupted, do not stop talking. Do not allow the interruption. Just keep on speaking.

Then, when you are both finished, say, “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you, it seems we were both talking at the same time”.

It’s a little awkward, but also a little fun.

mmm

16

I have a friend I’ve known for years. I love her dearly, but sometimes, she just starts talking and can take forever to get to the point. She gets lost in long, rambling, detailed tangents. I listened to forty five minutes of her telling me why she decided to not purchase a property, most of which I already knew from previous conversations. Sometimes I can redirect and get her back to the point, sometimes I just let her ramble, because we’re friends, and I know she needs to talk it out. If I call her, or see her number, I make sure I have time. Speaker phone helps because then my ear doesn’t go numb and my fingers don’t cramp from holding the phone. I try to find something quiet to do while she rambles. Reminds me I need to pull out my knitting and give her a call.

I don’'t think I’ve ever been cornered by someone who monopolizes a conversation. Dear gawd, I hope I’m not that person.

17

I often work with a woman like this. It’s really a shame because she’s a nice person and I like her. The thing is every single time we have a conversation about absolutely anything, it becomes all about her. Her kids, her husband, her workload, her weekend, you name it. She then proceeds to monopolize the conversation. I find it bothers me too, that if I know one of her kids had been sick, I’ll ask about them, but my world could be crashing down around me and unless I mention it, forget about it. Then of course, it reverts back to her or someone she knows anyway.

18

That happened to me once. I tried all the usual disengagement tactics…no good. I walked away. He followed.

I spotted a friend, walked over to him, grabbed him by the arm, and walked with him, rapidly, up a set of stairs and around a corner, into a darkened room. James Bond couldn’t have done a better job of evasion.

After a period of time, my friend said, “I am going to presume there was a good reason for this…”

19

I very briefly had a client like this, which is why it was very briefly. She was referred to me by one of my regular clients. It was for organizing, not cleaning, and when I went for the interview, she showed me the paperwork I would be sorting, then proceeded to talk. And talk. And talk. “Well, it probably won’t be like this when I come back,” I thought. “She’ll hand me the paperwork and then leave me the f alone to work on it.”

Yeah, right. When I showed up to officially start work, there was no paperwork. She greeted me at the door with a half-hour of babble, and when I cut in to say, “So…I should start working now,” she led me through the house, supposedly so I could dust and sweep (there was no dust, no clutter; there must have been a regular housekeeper, so nothing for me to do in that mode), and all the time, continuous babble. I was standing poised with a dust cloth in my hand, occasionally piping up, “Okay, so what do you want me to do?” which would only send her on another tangent.

I finally asked for a bathroom break, which I almost never do, so I could have three minutes of silence (at least she didn’t keep yammering at me through the door) to consider my options. It had been two hours. That’s the one advantage, I suppose: time melts away. But I wasn’t earning my fee. So I went out and told her, “Look, I’m here to work, and–”

“We’re going to make rice,” she announced. That got as far as her measuring the rice and filling a pot with water, thankfully not turning the stove on, before she went on yet another tangent. And the next thing I knew, four hours was up, and I still had not dusted, swept, washed, or done anything except follow her around while she babblebabblebabbled. Honestly, I just zoned out after a while. She let me leave, and she paid me, which to this day I’m not sure if I earned or not. I told her I wouldn’t be back, because her place was too far outside my usual circuit, and she was okay with that. Actually, the problem was not distance, it was the fact that there was only one narrow road taking me from her place back to the freeway, and at 5 pm, several hundred people were bottlenecked at the freeway entrance. So I spent 45 minutes inching my car forward. Any other day, that would have made my head explode, but in this case, just me and the radio = paradise.

In case you haven’t guessed, she was elderly. It happens, at that age. No filter, no one in the house to talk to, old memories coming to the surface…they just can’t stop themselves, and they probably don’t want to. Still boggles my mind that someone can talk for four hours, almost continuously, about nothing.

20

As a teenager or young adult, I may have tended to talk too much but sometimes people actually encouraged me. But then I met some true monopolizers and chose to speak less and listen more.

It is difficult to deal with egotists in general and it’s hell if they’re family members.