I’m sure you know someone like this…
Some People Just Talk a Lot…
But they aren’t Saying Anything.
The conversation starts off with a subject… the subject at hand… and that’s where anything of value ends…
Rather than addressing what you have just said, the person you are speaking to takes over, and the conversation begins to wander. In fact, it’s not only begun to wander, but the dialog has become a monologue that switches to a diatribe– then leads you all the way back to a high school friend you’ve never met in a town you’ve never been to… but now, just 20 minutes later, you know them by name. This, along with many other bits and pieces of information, are gleaned as the subject wandered down so many paths… that all lead nowhere.
There is a pause… You inhale, trying to collect your thoughts on how to redirect this person back to the original subject (if you can remember what it was at all). But oh, no: you took too long!
She’s telling you, “Oh yeah, I knew this girl once… her name was Sarah… hmm, now lets see! Sarah Jenkins was her name, and she was just like this and that, and I worked with her back, hmm… I don’t know 10 years ago? There was this other guy, Dan Smith was his name. He worked there… played the saxophone, I think…. a tenor, but maybe it was alto sax?”
After ten straight minutes of this you are just standing there staring at them… They don’t notice that they have lost you because… well… they are still talking!
Just at the moment you were thinking you could get a word in edgewise, the focus has changed once more and you now find yourself listening to a critique of a decade-old television episode… but no, that’s not it! Instead, we are on to high school again and another name is dropped…
But who the heck cares about Sarah and Dave and Bob and Joe and Frank? Not that it’s any more interesting, but if you’re going to be name dropping at least make it someone everybody has ever heard of!
Does this sound familiar?
Just because it happened to you, DOESN’T make it interesting.
What is it with these people? Most often I want to tell them, “Listen… here’s the thing: just because it happened to you doesn’t make it interesting”. But they just won’t shut up long enough for you to even say it. And even if you did, chances are the response would be:
“Yeah, don’t you know it? I saw this thing on National Geographic, about this tribe of pygmies.,. I don’t know a year or two ago? And it was just sooo boring! I was watching it with this girl Monica that used to hang out with Bob, my ex-bosses’ roommate from when I worked at…
Shut up!!! You talk too much!!!
Well… I wish I could scream at them like that, anyway. But you can’t say that, because these are the very same people that get all emotionally hurt then run around telling everyone what an @$$Hole you are– how you abused them and all. And this, despite the fact that these are generally people that have no clue of who you are, and have never heard your name before… but still…
I’m convinced that these people actually live in a world where you only exist as a character in their imagination. They are so self-centered, self-absorbed, narcissistic, oblivious, selfish, and egocentric that they imagine you are as interested in them and what they’ve got to say as… well… as interested as they are! They have their very own universe in there, and the sky is a different color from what we all see out here.
I have found that there really is no polite defense against these attention vampires and fountains of useless trivia, but I have found ways to screw with them. So far, this is the most effective method I have found:
While they are babbling on, barge in (if at all possible) and ask unrelated bizarre questions…
Like when they mention the name of some random person ask “what color was their hair?” and just as they answer pop off with “Do you know if they ever had their appendix removed?” and so on. If they happen to ask if you also know this person, just say “no, only curious… are they Catholic?
And so on. One of my all time favorite questions is to ask if there is anyone I could call to verify their story… That tactic could represent the treading on thin ice though… you know: abusive @$$Hole time.
But anyway: after a bit of this sort of interrogation, most of these soul-sucking, random info rappers will wander off, dazed… but if they don’t, you can always fake an epileptic seizure…
As I said in the beginning: I’m sure you know someone like this…
However: if you found yourself nodding and saying “Right on” or “Oh yeah, I know what you mean” while you were reading this… you may very well BE one of these people!