Probably it’s around 3 billion to a million. The women, they love to talk. It’s how they establish intimacy, make emotional connections, and process their experiences. (So how was your day?) They’re also better at it, or so what little we know of in the brain seems to indicate. (More of the brain lights up like a Christmas tree when women process language, whereas men’s brains localize the language center. No cites, just what I saw on the normally less-than-credible TLC before it became the interior decorator channel.) Women use this superior language ability effectively when dealing with small children, who I – like many men – can’t understand to save my life.
Perfect example. I love commentary tracks; I’ll watch them over and over like a mental patient. But I cannot slog through 5 minutes of a QT commentary track, even for my very favorite movie, True Romance. It’s worse than dental surgery.
And Zabali_Clawbane, I know you suspect that the OP is a passive-aggresive sort and is part of the problem in this scenario, but in the same spirit of random speculation, I think you’re being defensive because you’re a gabber. You say you’re rather fond of companionable silence, but I’m not buying it.
From my experience, sitting through a “how was your day?” bout of verbal diarrhea with any woman I’m not having sex with is torture. (Of course, if she’s sexing me up, it’s not verbal diarhea; it’s charmingly endearing.) I don’t mean to offend the ladies with that; think of it as being similar to how you perceive the same behavior from a guy you think is hot versus a guy you think is creepy. Same behavior, drastically different perception.
FWIW, I think there’s an anxiety component at play when it comes to gabbers. Male or female, it doesn’t matter.
One of my aunts, my MIL, and two of my SILs have verbal diarrhea – so much so that I have to clench my teeth if I’m trapped in a room with any of them for more than 5 minutes. They think I’m weird because, to them, I’m too quiet. That could easily be rectified if any of them would take a breather once in a while so I could get a word in edgewise :rolleyes:
I mean, it’s like she can’t function without talking! Say every number you dial into your cell phone; say math and reasoning (often false reasoning) out loud-
I’m surprised she doesn’t fucking go into the bathroom and say ‘Wipe one. Wipe two. Wipe THREE!!! There is shit on my toilet paper!’
I have only 101 days until the semester ends and I get to move- if you are married to one of these gabbing fucks- I’m sorry, just kill yourself. There is no hope for you- just do it. Fucking kill yourself.
I AM A GABBER, I confesse (this is Gabbers anonymous?).
I GAB the head off many people at work and while this is a pathetic excuse sometimes my gabbing is to make up for a couple of people I work with who NEED to learn how a conversation works!
Me: “Good Morning, how was the weekend”
Them: “Good”
Me: “Do anything good?”
Them: “Na, You?”
Me: “Went to the movies (or whatever), saw BLAH BLAH”
Them: “cool”
Me: “So nice weather eh?”
Them: “yep”
Some of us (yes ME! talk too frigging much) but some people need to learn how to interact with others. Those little moments swapping inanities about the weather are what makes working with people better then working with computers.
Humans wern’t designed to be solo units. We evolved in communities. Communities thrive on interaction.
Yes some of us gab tooooooooooooo much but shit some of you need to start gabbing! I don’t want to hear every thought in your brain (or mine!) but one word conversation killers are FAR worse then a Gabfest!
To all of you who want to kill your nearest gabber, please look at your own interactions. If they could be summed up in a word or two perhaps it is You that needs to work on the communication skills!
I am a gabber. I need to do something about that (ie SHUT UP) but being the strong-silent I-will-only-talk if-I-have-something-IMPORTANT-to-say type is just as annoying.
If you work with the same people everyday would it kill you to have a converstion? On the plus side it would shut the gabbers up if you actually said something.
My grandmother was a gabber of legendary proportions. She hated silence. Once she finished her gab, if nobody spoke up, she would start again from the beginning. As the story goes, when my parents were dating, my grandmother met my mom and must have thought “Aha! Fresh meat!” Away she gabbed. It was months before mom realized that she was the only one who was listening to grandma. Dad’s family had learned to tune her out years before.
Then I went and married a gabber. (Another straight-man data point. He’s waaaaay worse than me.) Once he came home in the middle of the night (I was fast asleep), he switched the bedroom light on and commenced gabbing as if I had just said “How was your day, honey?” I think I hurled something at him; he turned the light off but he kept on gabbing.
I don’t mind, really, I can usually steer him on to something I do care about (he’s no longer offended when I say “So what’s your point?” or “Remind me why you’re talking about this?” or “What does this have to do with that thing you were saying a minute ago?” or even “I’m sorry, I’m not in the mood for listening right now.”)
The worst possible type of gabber (and I know two of these, and one of them spends a lot of time IM-ing, which is the worst possible thing for a gabber) are the ones who gab on and on about how they’re so busy and how little time they have and how they have so much on their plate and they simply can’t do this minor, minor task because they just have so much to DO what with this deadline coming up and this other project going to shit and all these other people demanding their attention all the time…
Ellis Dee, I don’t mind a good conversation, and if I’m with friends I do open up and actually converse. I’ve creeped people out because I just sat there quietly on the edge of a crowd politely people watching, enjoying the ambience at a gathering. (The reason I was being so quiet is that I only knew a couple of the people there in passing, and they were busy conversing with others, and it wouldn’t have been right to insert myself into the conversation. My friends hadn’t arrived yet. I’m somewhat shy in large groups.) The people then did a doubletake when my friends arrived and we started conversing and joking.
My insight comes from having had to deal with a person similar to what is described in the OP. One day I decided to try and put her more at ease, and try to steer the conversation to a topic I liked, and she liked too. It worked, and she told me it was a great conversation. With some time I managed to get the idea across that some days I just wasn’t able to converse, and it would be a great favor if she could be quiet for me, with the idea that another day I’d have a rollicking converation with her. I’ve quelled a gabber is all. It can be done with some of them. (Though I do realize there are some of them who, if they become quiet the people around should call 911 becaue they are very ill.) It just takes a great deal of patience and flexibillity. My first post, is sort of what I said to myself one day in exasperation, when it hit me that she probably saw me as a bit rude. I realized that what she’d been trying to do was “draw me out of my shell” and “cheer me up” for some time, and that in a way I was being rude to her from her veiwpoint. I got fed up, and decided to try a different approach to dealing with the gabber. I’d tried several other things, so I figured maybe that one would work. I was aiming to try to get her to be quiet at least some of the time.
Yeah, and that’s great that that was your situation- but that ain’t mine.
The other day, in the car, I mentioned the news story about the 7 kids being smashed between the trailer and the bus. She starts on that a little. I tried to make a point about trailer drivers and their sleep habits, and her gabbing began again. My talking was smashed by her run-away freight train of words.
Keep in mind- I really don’t want to talk to her about trailer drivers and their lack of sleep, because to be blunt, the woman doesn’t know much about a lot of stuff, and there’s no reason in conversing. And no, she doesn’t need my words for any emotional reason. Thanks for trying, though- she’s just a gabbing Gabber from Gabbsville, Gabbasee, and needs to shut up more. Last night, she had me for 20 minutes as I stood in the doorway waiting to leave early for a movie; I got there on time, but fuck her for her rambling. I’ve gotta buy a handheld recorder and put some of her shit onto the internet for you guys- not to laugh at her, but for the purpose of knowing how inane and rambling her thoughts are.
And please, don’t take the easy shot- "Dude, that’s funny, cause like dude YOU’RE THOUGHTS are inane and rambling and stuff dude! Huh huh huh huh huh huh huh…’ You compared me to a Gabber with my three posts above, but you must see that I was venting, and I brought up topics such as
She has no internal monologue
I feel sorry for those married to Gabbers
Sure, these aren’t intelligent additions to the thread- but this is the Pit. We vent, and add posts containing 'fuck you’s and 'fuck that’s.
Yes, I hate those. Some gabbers can be driven to talk about interesting and relevant things, those are the considerate ones. Ones like your friend (and a co-worker of mine) are highly inconsiderate, because they don’t seem aware that us (the benighted listeners) have NO REASON WHATSOEVER to continue listening to them, except that we are too polite to tell them to stuff it.
Conversations like this one are almost physically painful for me:
Gabber: How’s it going?
Me: Good, thanks.
Gabber: Oh, I see you’ve burned your arm.
Me: Yes, thanks for your concern, it’s healing nicely.
Gabber: You should put some vaseline on there.
Me: [thinks: no, vaseline is the wrong thing to put on, because it seals the heat in; says] I’ve been using aloe and garlic, and it’s healing well
Gabber: No, use vaseline, I’ve always done that and I’ve never had a problem bla bla bla
Honestly, what am I supposed to do at that point? There are a whole series of things that annoy me with what he’s saying.
I don’t want your advice
It happened a week ago so you’re a little late, it’s almost healed
You’re WRONG, you’re not supposed to put vaseline on a burn, it’s better to put on aloe and/or garlic, which is why it’s almost healed
I have work to do
I don’t really care to talk to you anyway
But I cannot say any of those things. Instead I must listen. Why? Strictly because I am too polite to tell him to stuff it. Every conversation I have had with this man (sexual orientation currently unknown to me) has gone like this.
These are the type of co-workers that yes, it WOULD kill me to have a conversation with them. If I don’t kill myself first.
There are good reasons to have sex, and many bad reasons to have sex. To fit in with the crowd, to trap someone into a relationship, to give someone a disease – these are all bad reasons.
But I once had sex with a gabber simply to put something into her mouth besides noise. How bad is that?
The worst part was, when it was over, the gabbing started again.
Heh, **Calm Kiwi ** I daresay what you just said is similar to what the gabber I dealt with might have said to me if driven over the edge. It wasn’t that I was strong and silent though, just that I’d been in classes all day and wanted to quietly unwind most of the time. I was also pretty young too.
With all due respect, he doesn’t sound like a gabber to me. If he was,
a) You wouldn’t have been able to tell him why you don’t like vaseline, and
b) You’d know his sexual orientation. You’d know all about it. Every last painful detail.
