Well, good. And if I may make a suggestion? Learn to roll with the punches a little better. You will get flak when you do this sort of thing. If you do continue it, you might as well learn to accept the flak.
Many of these threads could be viewed as the message board equivalent of gabbing. Just sayin’.
But to this OP - Good one. My MIL was visiting this weekend, and by Monday morning, I was ready to pit her. Oy, she can talk. And talk. And talk. Especially in the car. I am not a car talker. I married a car talker, but she understands that I am not one and lets me listen to the radio. Both of them in the car together - What was I thinking when I said I’d go to the mall with them?
I usually make interested “uh-huh” noises and continue to contemplate whatever random bit is running around my brain at the time. Mrs. Magill tells me that’s all she needs - an audience. She doesn’t get one at home, because my FIL travels full time, and all the kids have moved out.
I’m usually the lucky one. She’ll call Mrs. Magill about twice a week and keep her on the phone for an hour. I can tell, because she’ll just get that glazed over look in her eyes and mutter “uh-huh”, “yeah”, and “I see”.
Gabbers are annoying, but just sincerely pretend to be interested - that’s all they ask.
Not even that, I used to respond to my father with “Yeh, dad, I don’t really care.” … “Yeh, I am not even listening” … “hopefully you’ll eventually stop talking about your friend Rob who I don’t even know.” … “You can just stop talking because I haven’t actually listened to anything you were saying for quite some time.” etc etc.
Of course, he never did listen to me, but then again, I am a Gabber too, so that might explain it 
Peace and quiet and a chance to get my work done…that’s all I ask. I’ve tried showing interest. I’ve tried showing boredom. Either way, it’s blahblahblahblahblahblahblah.
I can usually shut gabbers up by asking them a question that requires thought.
Mother-in-law and sister-in-law G fuckin’ A fuckin’ B.
Holy shit can they go on.
I might watching TV at the in-laws, and MIL will come in and just START. And I don’t even need to look up, or grunt an “uh huh”, or make eye contact or anything. She will stand in front of me and just talk for 15 minutes straight without any response from me and then just step out of the room.
It’s not like she thinks she’s interesting or anything. I’d almost just call it a nervous habit. It’s like she’ll pop if her mouth isn’t moving up and down.
My SIL inherited it. My wife didn’t. Although, it’s likely she wouldn’t be my wife if she had because I wouldn’t have made it through the first night.
Work Gabbers are a different story. They get ignored or told that I have things to do.
I had a senior manager who was a major gabber (His “gourmet coffee” also smelled suspiciously like Southern Comfort, but that’s a different story. He would arrive at 7:00 am and just talk at whoever was there. The early people on my team complained to me about L, so we had to have a little chat.
“L,” I started, “you know how S, K, and M come in at 7:00 to get things done, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, they really value the hour before 8:00 because it gives them a chance to catch up on tasks without interruption.”
“Good idea there.”
“Well, it really doesn’t work if someone plants himself at their desks and talks to them for the hour.”
“Oh, no, that’s why I discourage socializing.” - He really said this. He also was totally without a clue.
“L - I’m talking about you, here. S, K, and M have asked me to talk to you about this.”
For the first time since I had known him, he was speechless.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Zabali_Clawbane . . . that one drives me batshit crazy!
I’m a quiet type, and very comfortable with silence. Gabbers love me–and they always find me. I’ve learned that the best way to deal with them at work is to try to avoid letting them trap me in my cubicle. If I’m in the hall or at their desk, it’s a lot easier to find a way to extricate myself. (Maybe I should set up a fake Outlook reminder that pops up every 15 minutes so it looks like I have a meeting or something–just in case they trap me in my cubicle.)
My MIL is a bit of a gabber. Not quite as bad as all that you’ve described here, but she can go on, and it’s often completely meaningless to me. She also likes to read out loud–entire newspaper articles, letters, package inserts, you name it. Gah!
God I love that. I’m a quiet person myself. My last boyfriend, I got him to read the sports pages to me (I have no interest in sports) and I was in love. Read to me. I’m yours.
Be glad you’re not married to this person.
Don’t get me wrong–I love being read to. But I don’t want to hear the entire itinerary of their trip to Hawaii, the package insert for her cholesterol meds, or the recipe for coq au vin.
“Music is the space between the notes.”
–Claude Debussey
Honestly, you make it sound as if it is mandatory that there must be conversation at all times. What’s wrong with a little silence? Or even some give and take?
And you want to blame the gabber’s gabbiness on some emotional fault of andrew’s? Talk about blaming the victim. Some people just don’t like incessant, meaningless, annoying noise. Which is all a gabber has to offer.
Or THINK OUT LOUD- gah, I hate sitting there for three minutes and listening to her trying to figure out out loud how the internet works, or saying something like ‘I bet the government works this way…’ or other WAGs that are all fluff.
There is nothing wrong with silence, I’m rather fond of companionable silence and share it with loved ones fairly often. I’m able to sit very still myself, and have a need to go do that from time to time, but I also like a good conversation. However it seems to me that the OP is often passive aggressive when dealing with others, and that there was more to the situation than what he describes. There has to be some balance in the acquaintanceship though.
Obviously she’s anxious and feels a need for conversation, while he’s quieter and less communicative verbally. (He would have us believe. I think it’s more what I said later on, that he just didn’t like the topics and couldn’t be arsed to bring up ones that did interest him.) A quiet person shouldn’t be expected to take up gabbing any more than a gabby person should be expected learn how to be a living mannequin. That doesn’t mean that both of them don’t need to work towards meeting the other’s needs with regards to conversation/silence. All I was saying is there needs to be some kind of balance, some middle ground. He needs to work on getting there, and there is a good chance she will follow with a sigh of relief.
Nope- this ain’t one of those cases, though you’re right that they do exist. When we were in the car going back from the movies, she was talking before we got in the car, the whole ride home, etc. There was no ‘awkward silence which she felt obligated to fill with words,’ and I had no opportunity between her rambling and random topics to add one of my own- if I had wanted to, which admittedly I rarely do these days (more on that in a sec *). This situation of not being able to add a subject because the Gabber won’t let up has been described by others above- believe it or not Zabali, you may not have the power to sum up my situation just yet.
*- The reason I don’t bring up topics I’m interested in when around her anymore is because she already gabs enough on her own without me throwing more fuel onto the fire. Also, I really don’t want to talk to her about anything. I don’t dislike her, no, but no conversations are desired.
My best friend is a gabber. She talks so much that my boyfriend can immediately tell when I’m on the phone with her - I’m just sitting there in complete silence. I often put her on speakerphone and go about my business. When she calls me at work, I keep doing my work while keeping her b-a-r-e-l-y tuned in just in case I might have to respond. One night on the phone she talked to me so long that I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until I heard her saying my name three or four times in a row (she thought we had been disconnected :p). The good thing is, she knows it and can take being teased about it or even being told that I just can’t talk at the moment. I still love her though.
I work with a gabber. As our department is comprised of three people I obviously can not entirely tune her out. She is good at her job and I generally get along well with her. But her habit of trying to put herself into conversations I am having with the third person in the department, and frequently making irrelevant comments and observations can at times really frustrate me.
At the end of every year the entire company goes through the initial phases of the annual performance review cycle, which includes offering comments about the performance of co-workers during the past year. These comments can be submitted to managers anonymously, and they do get passed on to the subject later in the process. I’ve always submitted my comments anonymously; this year for the first time in my comments about this gabber I suggested she really needs to work on developing verbal control. I’ll obviously have to wait and see if that actually happens.
So what’s the score up to now? :eek: — women vs. — men?
I thought up another straight male Gabber: Quentin Tarantino. If you watch his interviews on DVD or late night shows, he is always gabbing excitedly about every little thing in his life. Probably gets annoying after a while.