I recently started attending a small informal weekly meetup at a coffee shop; we do crafts and shoot the breeze. Anyway, one of the more-regular members only seems to want to talk about one thing - and not only is it the only the she wants to talk about, she completely takes over the entire “conversation” and turns it into a monologue.
:rolleyes:
What is her favorite topic? Experiences she’s had at campouts with the Society for Creative Anachronism. :smack: Granted, several other attendees, regular and otherwise, are involved in SCA, but others, including me, are not, and we don’t know any of the people she’s talking about and don’t find it interesting.
I genuinely like her otherwise and know I’m not a perfect person, and I really hate saying things like “Could you please find something else to talk about?” but that may be needed there. I certainly don’t want to blow a group up over something like that, or for that matter be asked to leave myself. :o
We recently sort of merged with another meetup, and the people at the other meetup quickly stopped attending, although that didn’t surprise me because as groups go, ours and theirs don’t have a lot in common other than the mutual interest that led to the meetup in the first place. (Knitting and crocheting) I do wonder how much her not-interesting monologues had to do with it.
ETA: Our group skews younger, and the other one older. The older one is the one that joined us and quickly departed.
It’s not easy, but gentle interruptions would help break up the litany of SCA stuff. Wait till she takes a breath, then lead in with a carefully selected topic or question on a completely different subject. It shows she has to cede the floor and you have a right to take the floor. If she counters with more SCA stuff, gently bring her back to what you were introducing. It’s only fair, right? And only a moron would fuss about that.
It will help if you prepare some topics ahead of time especially if she immediately counters with her own stuff again. Try engaging with one or two of the other group to get some cross-conversation going. It’s a less obvious way of crowding her out, if only temporarily. You don’t want to exclude her or shut her down permanently. This is about containment.
I’m not a big fan of confronting rudeness with a smackdown, whether done politely or not, in public or privately. Actions speak louder than words and setting an example where all folks have a right to speak and lead topics is more successful, IMO.
Good luck. She sounds like a real attention-seeker but you’re not responsible for providing her with a place for her self-therapy, tbh.
Is there a consensus among the others that this is a problem? I hate to discuss someone behind their back, but this might be an instance where that is warranted.
If you get a sense that you’re the only one who feels the way you do…you’re hosed, and might as well try to find another group.
If everyone feels the way you do, you can cooperate (“gang up”) to help change the speaker’s behavior.
If some do and some don’t, it becomes awkward and complex!
Maybe after a certain point of her going on and on about it, you could say something like, “You know, SCA Lady, I soooo wish I could contribute to this topic, but I confess to knowing nothing about this stuff. {self-deprecating chuckle} You probably think I’m so boring because I can never join in this conversation, but now you know why! That reminds me…has anyone seen any good movies lately? I saw an excellent documentary last week about the military industrial complex. I think it was called…”
Yeah, that last bit is a non sequiter, but that’s okay.
Maybe join the other group. Do so explicitly and say that the reason you’re going is that you aren’t really into SCA that much and feel you’d have more to contribute in the other group. Do it cheerfully and as if it’s completely OK and understood that your current group is largely an SCA group. Then see what happens.
The OP says she “recently” started attending this group. I wonder how long the rest of the group members have been there?
My point being that if the other, say, 5 people in this group have been listening to the SCA monologue for months without saying or doing anything to stop it, they’ve taught Madame SCA that the floor is rightfully hers. If so, the OP is going to have a very uphill fight to change anything.
I know some knitting and crocheting groups my wife plays in where there’s a mix of chatting and of silence. Others are mostly quiet and others are mostly chatter. If Madame SCA is the only person who really likes talking the others are going to leave a huge opening that only she or the OP can fill.
We have a yenta like that at our building. In any social grouping she’s fine while other people are talking. But she cannot abide a single second of silence. If one happens, she’s gonna start babbling. She’ll happily quit once someone, anyone grabs the conversational baton out of her hand. But she’ll start up again at the first lull in the action. Lather rinse repeat. :smack: She’s a genuinely nice person with interesting topics of interest. But Jeebus woman, let us all enjoy some of the silence we’re all working together to create.
The meetups themselves are fairly new, although in both cases, the members have known each other for a long time from other things, and not just knitting and/or SCA.
The two common members are myself and “D”, who is also active in SCA but doesn’t discuss it with people who aren’t interested. “D” is actually the one who started the SCA/younger leaning group.
Mrs. SCA (she’s married to another SCA member) has a job with irregular hours, so she probably comes to about half of our meetups. Tell you what: next time I’m there and she isn’t, I’ll ask if that’s all she talks about in other places too.
That’s a good oblique opening. If the others are fed up too, you’ll hear about it without you having to tip your hand. Very clever. Who says you need social situation advice?
If you feel it, no doubt many others also feel it. So your finally voicing things up, “Could we not talk so much about this SCA” might be just the breath of fresh air others have been inwardly begging for for so long.
A lot of this depends on the format of the discussion.
If it’s basically one-at-a-time talking, then I think it’s perfectly valid to say you want to give a chance to the next person to speak.
Indeed, in any group discussion, even if there are no discussion hogs, there are inevitably some people who feel frozen out.
Ask one of those people a question, it’s really beneficial to the group that everyone gets at least a chance to speak.
OTOH, if it’s just people talking ad hoc to whoever, then just turn to the person beside you and start a separate conversation. It doesn’t matter how loud she speaks, she cannot prevent people splitting into side convos.
I think you’ve got some great ideas here on how to nudge things in the right direction. If they don’t work out, moving to the other group is not a bad thing. I know they skew older, but I can tell you that they likely would welcome a younger member. My mother is a member of several of these groups. Despite being over 70, she is often the youngest. The members often worry that their groups will die out when the members pass. They also like getting fresh blood. New things to talk about. New people to meet. I would expect that you’d be welcomed.
It’s just that I’ve had multiple incidents over the years where I was in a club, formal or not, and every time I spoke, someone would butt in, cut me off, and change the subject; or shrug their shoulders and make derogatory remarks; or when I arrived, the places would always be saved and I could sit at the table next to them but not with them (and then the people the place was saved for never arrived), etc. And yes, I do call people out on in, FWIW. :dubious:
That hasn’t happened with the SCA-leaning group, but there is a woman in the older group who does this (cut me off and change the subject); however, she doesn’t do it only to me. :rolleyes: