This is truly the weirdest thing I’ve ever had with conversations. This new guy that we have working for us… well I don’t know where to start. This could really be a Seinfeld episode. It usually starts off with any topic (work or mundane related), and when it comes time to end the conversation, I have done my part. I’ve verbally terminated it, and have cut off eye contact. What verbally terminated means exactly, I don’t know. Let’s just say that it ended naturally, and you know when a conversation ends, yes? But instead, he just seems to stare at me afterwards. And I notice this out of the corner of my eye, for many, many seconds. And yes, it freaks me out when I’m being stared at, for no peticular reason, for an extended amount of time. Sometimes I’ll look back at him real quick (wondering WTF does he want?), but all he does it compose himself real quick, and continues to gaze! I’m sorry, but it’s creepy. I found it a bit odd at first, and dismissed it. But it happens every time we talk about something now. Now he’s a nice and intelligent guy and all, I just found it… to be odd. So I’m not saying he’s a bad person or anything. It’s almost as if he expects me to say more, when in fact, I am done with the conversation. Or maybe I’m just that irresistible! Probably NOT though. Anyone else witness this before?
Don’t panic. Knowing when conversations are done is a social skill it sounds like this guy missed. Unless he’s hard of hearing, maybe?
Maybe he’s one of those guys who needs to hear POOT time to advance the filmstrip to the next frame. 
I am of THEE worst kind when it comes to social skills. Usually when someone is in bad social situations, we don’t invite them by continuing to stare, we run like hell!
This may be it, but he can understand me perfectly enough.
You need to initiate psychological conditioning utilizing positive reinforcement. When the conversation is over, ring a little bell as you hand him a piece of candy and walk away briskly. Praise is important, so as you ring the bell tell him “that was a good conversation!” Cut the candy down to every other time, then every third, then cut down on the bell. Within a few weeks you should be conversing normally.
So I should ‘Little Albert’ him? Interesting theory.
We must work in the same office. You’ve just described a guy I work with. He’ll trap me at my desk, say a few things, then apparently wait for me to do most of the talking. Long, akward periods of silence are now the norm. Often, I’ll go ahead and end the conversation and turn my back to him and continue with what I was interupted from at the computer, and he’ll still stand there. Then he’ll say something else to continue a conversation that ended long ago.
Many times, I’ll just get up from my desk - make some type of conversation ending comment, and just leave to hit the head or get some coffee.
I think The Devil’s Grandmother is right, and some people just don’t possess this skill, or are incapable of properly “reading” other people.
Yes! This too! I emphasized ‘long’ for you.
We have a guy like that where I work. He’s a nice guy and everything, but he just doesn’t know when to stop. I hate it when a conversation starts with him, because it always end up with me having to take increasingly uncomfortable measures to get him to stop talking and let me work. I’ll do things like say, “Man, that’s a great story. Thanks for telling me. Anyway, I’d better get back to work…” then I’ll completely ignore him and bury my face in some paperwork, or the computer screen, or whatever it is I should be doing. And damned if he won’t just stand there. Then he’ll continue on with the conversation like it never ended. I have to get increasingly brusque to the point where I start feeling really uncomfortable, and he never gets it. Conversations usually end with him talking and me going, “uh huh… uh huh…” while not even looking in his direction until finally he wanders away. Or, I’ll actually get up and leave my office to ‘get a coffee’ or something. Occasionally he’ll follow me down the hall, still talking.
His twin sister works in my office. I actively avoid conversation with her, because she just doesn’t get the concept of a pleasant, brief interchange. It just goes on and on and on and on… I’ve tried wrapping it up, smiling pleasantly and moving away, even returning to my work, or at lunch, my book. Small talk by the coffee machine while we fill our cups is not her forte. Even I, a blundering fool, can figure out when the interchange is over. Gah. It is a weird mannerism.
Dammit, danceswthcats, I hurt myself trying to silence my laughter so my family wouldn’t think I was a loon.
Don’t do that again! 
Are you suggesting that she fart when she wants to terminate social intercourse with him? Hmm, that might just be crazy enough to work…
Well all I know is, if one wants to terminate sexual intercourse they just have to fart.
I have a next-door neighbor with the affliction Sam describes. Nice guy, good neighbor, but I try to avoid conversations with him unless I have no schedule to keep.
Curiously, his wife is the exact opposite – she rarely greets anybody.
I guess it’s a coping mechanism, for both of them.
My new boss, unfortunately, is like this. Everybody else more senior in the company describes him as having ‘lots of energy’, but the uncertaintity of tone and stifled smiles bely the truth–he just talks -way- too much and doesn’t know when to end a conversation.
In the middle of an important seminar I was at, he called essentially just to ask me to come see him later, but managed to drag it out into a half-hour long ordeal with me tossing out lots of indirect cues like, “Okay, thanks–Ill be there. I’ll let you go now. Need to get back to work here.”, and with him always managing to tack in another conversation hook afterwards as though not getting the hint.
It’s moments like that when I just envision the corpse of Senator Thurmond materializing from the ether and imagining the two engaging each other in a no-holds barred Filibuster match to the death and cringe in uneasiness.
Our family can do this brilliantly. We can have a conversation in the morning and then suddenly begin it in the evening again, taking up where we left off earlier.
Visitors have been bemused as suddenly they hear:
Iceland:Curried sheep.
Mother:Yes or maybe they could deep-fry them.
Iceland:But then they’d escape.Some way of locking them up would be necessary.
That generally is the heights of conversation reached Chez Iceland except when his father and sister are discussing politics and other family members retreat to a safe distance…
I dunno, though. Are you sure that it’s clear to him that you’ve “ended it verbally”? I once had a huge blowup with a guy who would stop talking on a dime, or so it seemed to me, and just turn his head and start talking to someone else/working/whatever.
Like your co-worker, I would just keep standing there, because it wasn’t clear to me that the conversation was over. I was under the impression that when you’re finished talking to someone, you excuse yourself some kind of way, not just switch gears. Each of us thought the other was rude, but I still think it was him, or at least partly him.
What is it you say that ends the conversation verbally?
I’m sorry but that’s wrong. Lots of girls fart during intercourse. Sometimes they are just so excited they can’t help it and it sneaks out. It’s the man’s job to ignore it and pretend it never happened.
And please no jokes about how all the girls who ever farted while I was fucking them just wanted it to end, because they only do it when it’s really good and then they want to do it again.
And sorry to continue the hijack, but if you were really getting it on and enjoying it would you seriously end everything right then and there because of a little accidental innocent poot?
Then again, I mean if somebody really makes a face and forces out some house shaking parakeet killing monster, that’s another thing.
But it’s never happened to me and I don’t think your first post completely summed it up.
Oh damn it… Mom has a job?
When did she get one? She never told us!
No, really. Her normal mode is talking non-stop; the rest of the family is lucky if we can get a word in edgewise, yet she complains that “we never tell her anything.” But when she finally runs out of words, she’ll just stare at you. You’re still reading the same book you’ve been reading all through the “conversation” and you can feel her eyes boring into you. And you say “what?” and she says “nothing” and goes on staring…
She can talk for over 5 hours and then stare at you for another.