Monomaniacs of the world, PLEASE lay some more rail in your one-track minds

The BBQ Pit
1

Just in case no one ever explained this to you before: The fact that you think Subject X is the most fascinating topic ever does NOT meant that everyone else agrees.

Some hints that the person you are burbling to is less than enthralled and what you should do in response:

a) utter minimal feedback.
You: Five paragraph recap of the action in last night’s episode of some TV show.
Victim: Uh. Don’t watch that show.
You SHOULD NOT respond with: A half hour lecture on all the significant developments over the four years that the show has been on.
You SHOULD: Change the subject! Say something like: Oh, too bad, I really like it. What shows do YOU watch?

b) attempts to flee.
You: At a party you have met (cornered) a new acquaintance and are deep into explaining the subtext behind “The Patty Duke Show” and how it really wasn’t a light weight sitcom but the first significant blow against the Judeo-Christian ethos by the nascent homosexual liberation movement.
Victim: Fascinating. [looks around frantically] Oh, there’s…uh, Mary! I need to go talk with her about…um, taking care of my dog next weekend.
You SHOULD NOT respond with: I’ll come with you, I bet Mary used to watch the show, too, but maybe she hasn’t realized that the fact that Cathy parted her hair while Patty didn’t means…
You SHOULD respond with: Okay, nice meeting you. LET YOUR VICTIM GO. YOU HAVE ALREADY STRUCK OUT, GIVE UP. Maybe the next person you meet WILL share your fascination with ‘identical cousins.’

c) clear attempts to cut you off from going down a path you are heading for.
You: I heard a great new joke about Pope John Paul II, three chickens and a jewish haberdasher. OR I read an article in yesterdays Chronical about the effect of global warming on spotted salamanders. OR I saw <<movie that just opened>> last night and let me tell you, it has the lamest plot twists.
Victim: I already heard that joke OR Yes, I read that article OR Don’t spoil that movie for me, we’re going to see it this weekend!
You SHOULD NOT blindly bulldoze your way along as if the victim hadn’t spoken. DO NOT tell the joke. DO NOT proceed to recap the article in detail. DO NOT continue to talk about the movie, even if you say you only only revealing “minor spoilers.”!

d) Awkward transitions as the victim tries to change the subject:

You: ....which proved in vain because Napoleon had already anticipated that the English army--
Victim: Oh, Napoleons!  I love them.  I like to bake, really, anything.  Are you into cooking?
You SHOULD NOT look at your victim blankly, then continue on with critiquing the battle of Waterloo.  Be a good guy, try to find something to say about cooking. Or offer a new tangent of your own -- No, I'm not much of a cook, but I love eating out.  What's your favorite restaurant?

I’ll make it real simple for you: if you are deep into discussing your favorite subjects and the other party isn’t holding up their half of the conversation eagerly, please do either of two things: Move along to a new subject or move along to a new person.
Please.

Pretty please, says the woman who was just trapped in a car on a 90 minute journey while one passenger delivered a nearly non-stop monologue on the first episode of “Revelations” and how it compared to other end of times books/movies AND how it related to the Bible, complete with quotations. The other two people in the car 1) had not seen the show 2) expressed no interest in hearing about the show and 3) have no interest in the subject matter at all. We tried, over and over, to divert the ‘conversation’ but no matter what other topic we tried to start talking about, she would simply return to drivelling along about Revelations.

Hey, Sally, guess what? When you hit the restroom while we were at the gas station in Manchester, we actually discussed driving off just so you could experience being ‘left behind’ first hand. (Heh. Heh.)

Lucky for you that even though we are evil Secular Humanists, we are relatively kind-hearted ones. Your next victims might not be.

2

:smiley: That’s just beautiful!

Some people are so oblivious. I avoid traveling with people like this. Sorry you had to be stuck in a car with her.

I think you were a little too polite. You could have ignored her after a few attempts to change the subject. It’s more interesting to stare out the window. Oh, look, cows! Or since there was another person in the car, the two of you could have started your own conversation on something completely different.

Or you can do what I do with my brother, who also has the very bad habit of rambling on about things only he’s interested in (usually on the phone, long-distance), and tell her you’re really not interested in talking about this, and it’s time to change the subject. Yeah, it’s rude, but they’re being rude by talking on and on about things that bore everyone else around them.

3

My mother is way guilty of c) (and it must be genetic, as I have some of those tendencies as well, although I try to curb them). Often she’ll start to tell me something that I’ve heard before, and I’ll break in with “Yeah, you already told me this,” but she still gives me the rest of the story. And ignoring her doesn’t work that well. I can just not say anything, but she’ll continue to find stuff to talk about, for a while at least. We can have long phone conversations with me hardly saying anything. My roommates have commented on it as well, so I know it’s not just me.

So you say you’ve never watched Ghost in the Shell, eh? Well, here’s what’s going on…

4

I went into this wondering, “What the hell has this one got against monorail enthusiasts?”

I read an article long ago about a mental condition referred to as “Pronoid.” Opposite of paranoid, the afflicted is incapable of believing they could be offensive in any way.

5

But monorail is not really the right term for this. The correct term is “one track mind”, which means the train can only go in one direction. Most railways have tracks going in both directions, so trains don’t collide, but this is difficult to accomplish with model trains, due to polarity issues. However, you can buy special track for reversing directions, so that when the train passes over it, the polarity is reversed. This is a very clever arrangement.

What’s more fascinating is the advent of digital trains, in which this problem is eliminated. Each train can be individually addressed, and separate functions on each such as lights, smoke, sound…

Wha? Hey this is interesting stuff!

I think that the OP is speaking directly to me, as I’m definitely guilty of this. When I get involved in a hobby, I tend to talk peoples’ ears off about my newfound expertise. I’ll have all the zealotry of a newly converted Muslim.

My latest hobby is electric trains. :slight_smile:

6

I’m bored now. Can we talk about something else? Hey, have you heard about that Revelations show? :wink:

I should introduce you to my brother. I think you’d get along just fine!

7

Starving–this:

is beautiful.

Thank you.
I know someone who got left behind at a rest stop. I always thought that my marriage had issues, until I heard of my parent’s friends who, on their way to Texas, stopped in some southern state. They were driving an RV-wife in the back, napping. He got out to pee, and so did she…he didn’t check for her, or talk to her, but drove off! It was late at noc and the only way to keep warm was for her to keep pushing the hand dryer knob.

He discovered she was gone about 3 hours later.

to his credit, he turned around and got her.

Come to think of it, she was kinda one note with the conversational skills…heh.

8

This applies to my mother… and just about everyone I grew up with. And sadly, even me, though I do try to keep it reigned in. You see, where I come from, you have to learn to shout to be heard. Now, I’m not loud (hell, before I get to know people, I’m painfully shy), but once I start on something, by Og, nothing is going to slow me down or shut me up. Out here, it’s terribly embarrassing. I feel like I’m mowing people down. When I finally stop talking, I realise how unimportant what I just said really was, and burn with humiliation. I’m working on it. Hard.
I, too, can “talk” on the phone with my mother for hours and hours… only to hang up and think, “Aw, shit, I wanted to tell her this, this, this, this, and this!” And realise there hadn’t been a moment that I could have slipped it in edgewise. I, however, am fully up to date on all of her favourite shows (that I don’t watch), exercises (that I don’t do) diet plans (that I don’t follow) the workplace (where I do not work) old friends (who I do not speak to) and health updates (on people I thought were long dead).

9

Sure.

The other day I had this revelation about model steam locomotives…

10

Feh! Models schmodels. TRAIN SIM is where it’s at. Why just the other day I was driving a quadruple-headed diesel-electric Co+Co coal train through the mighty Ten Tunnels deviation in the Blue Mountains. I was riding the yellows as there was a commuter train in front, and…

Hey. Hey! Come back, something cool happens…

11

“You don’t know what happens next. It could be fascinating. For all you know, I could have taken the dice, shoved them up his nose, then headbutted him, shooting the dice out his ears.”

“Fine, Rimmer. What happened next?”

“I threw a six and a four!”

12

With me, it’s not so much that I can’t get anything in edgewise–I could if I wanted to. But I usually don’t, and there have been times when I don’t want to talk to her, and would actually like her to hang up (and I need to work on my ‘Mom, I’m busy right now’ skills). Once she called, and one of the first things I said was “I’m watching Farenheit 9/11.” I was with other people so I couldn’t pause it. She should have taken it as a hint to call back later, but she still decided to cram in what she could before saying “I suppose I should let you get back to your movie.” ARGH!

13

We-elll… I might be able to slip something in there, if I really tried, but she’s been at this much longer than I have. She does the same thing, though, calls when I first hint, then tell her I’m very busy, and she still manages to keep me on for a half an hour or longer.

This is a lady who will stand in your open doorway, talking for twenty minutes, because she hasn’t got time to come inside.

I’m certain this goes without saying, not just for me, but for most of us with mothers like ours, but I love her dearly, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to tolerate the silence when she’s gone.

14

Um, no they don’t. They have a single set of tracks, and rail traffic controllers and sidings and exquisitely-timed schedules so trains don’t collide.

As for the OP, yup, people who can’t take a hint, like your total lack of interest in what they’re talking about, are tedious.

15

Jayn_Newell, I think your old lady and my old lady should get together and go bowling. :wink: My mom does the exact same thing to me: nothing can stop this woman from calling me and rambling on and on if she feels like talking.

Exhibit A: In early January I had a horrible cold, and at one point the symptoms included a lung-producing cough and a weak voice. I sent Mom an e-mail on a Friday evening, explaining that I felt like death and if I was better by the end of the weekend I’d call her, but otherwise we’d talk the following week. The next day I got a reply e-mail: “Please call tomorrow when you get the chance.” Thinking that maybe she’d talked to her doctor or something, I called on Sunday – despite not feeling any better. Did she have anything meaningful to discuss? NO! She just needed to vent about some stuff that had happened at work during the week, blow by blow.

Exhibit B: Mom got a new cell phone this past Sunday. On Monday night I had a class, and when I got home I found that she had sent me a picture message. I texted her back, praising her for figuring out the new technology (sounds condescending, but I knew it was what she wanted to hear). She replied asking me how I’d done in a contest I’d been in over the weekend. I replied, and expressed surprise that she was still awake: at that point it was 10:40pm, nearly two hours past her regular “bedtime.” In the same message, I said that I needed to eat something and then get to SLEEP (with the all caps and everything). So, of course, 10 minutes later she calls me. Again, just to bullshit (even though we’d just talked two nights before), and again dismissing any hint of mine that I really needed to go to bed.

I finally had to be a little rude yesterday: she drove up to see her father for his 90th birthday (I couldn’t get away this weekend or I would have been with her), and called me twice during the day just to talk. She’s still figuring out things about the new phone, and when I asked her if she’d brought the manual with her to look through she said yes, and then said, “I thought maybe I could call you tonight and we could play with some of the features. Do you have plans?” I paused, and thank og she got the hint because she quickly said, “Or do you just want to go to sleep tonight?” I admitted that I really just needed a night to myself – omitting that I’d talked to her more in the past week than I normally do in a month, and just couldn’t take any more – and apologized, but she seemed to understand. I’m actually a little surprised that she didn’t call today, but I guess she’s with family now and can talk their ears off. :wink:

(I don’t share my mother’s loquacity, but man I’ll type a hella long thread post! :D)

16

I am awstruck by the brilliance of this.

Her: natter natter AntiChrist natter natter Rapture natter natter And she was speaking in LATIN!

Me: Oh, that’s a pretty brown cow.
Her: natter natter Cabal natter natter End of Days natter natter Christ.

Me: Oh, isn’t that cow cute? I think the black and white ones are best, don’t you?

There’s a perfect justice about it: I wouldn’t be being exactly rude, just as hell bent on my mania (cow spotting) and she was on hers.

I wonder if she’d even realize what was going on?

17

ooh…and interject with cow questions!

“why are half the herd lying down at any given moment?”

“D’ya think these are dairy cows or just cattle for hamburgers?”

“Can you tell a Guernsey from a (uh-I don’t know the types of cows…help!)?”
A keep a smile on you face and lilt in your voice.
Wish I could be a bug on the windshield for this!

18

All of our mothers must be related or something; mine does the exact same thing. Also, she leaves such long messages on my phone that they’re always cut off at the end and I have to phone her back and ask what she meant to say.

Back to the OP: There’s this sort-of-friend of mine who tends to go on a bit about things and I usually respond by miming stabbing my temple with a fork. He figured that one out quick.

19

Hmmm…I learned an evil trick from my daughter when dealing with people like this. You work it. Start making up stuff in agreement with the droner. “really? Well, did you also know that Revelations 3:19 specifically predicts Darwinism AND its eventual downfall in late 2005? Yes, really, we should be seeing some amazing changes soon, that’s why dinosaur bone carbon testing is so bogus”.

Just draw it out and make up odder and odder stuff to go along with it. Get as weird as you need to be. The person will either get it, or else you and your partner in crime will dissolve into helpless laughter and at least have fun.

Don’t worry, if they’re THAT oblivious? They’ll never get what you’re doing.

My sister and I were just talking about the subject (sortof) in the OP. I really can’t stand a huge percentage of my “fellow” christians. PEOPLE! God gave us a brain. Use it! Most of you aren’t doing so, and in fact are consistantly proving your severe lack of grey matter.

20

Oh yes!!! I forgot to make sure I made this clear. It should be done sweetly and purely for “how to make this as painless as possible for the victims” NOT in any way snarky or mean toward the droner.

Besides, more skill is involved when you keep it sweet. :smiley: