People who talk over you mid sentence-why??!!!

[Showerpuff]

I’ve got a lovely friend, I like everything about her except she constantly cuts me off mid sentence. We met for a coffee yesterday and by the end of it she’d talked over me about 5 times. I feel like I don’t know her well enough to say ‘will you let me finish what I’m bloody well saying!’. I find it so rude though.

Why do people do this? How can she not be aware of what she’s doing? I either have to stop what I’m saying mid sentence or continue talking but louder and then we’re both talking at the same time. It’s so odd!

MotherPupper

Don’t worry many people I don’t give it much thought

Remember MN people are posting annoyances and also being overwhelming MC the very English obsession of complying with the social etiquette of being seen as not rude plays out

The amount of issues as being seen as unbelievably rude on here I wouldn’t think twice about and I doubt most people do in everyday life but there is a very long list 😁

My dm does this and also me and my dsis. We must have got it from my mum. Me and dm are aware of it and make a real effort not to. I also don't want my dc to start doing it or to ever talk over them so I'm pretty good at stopping myself now.

Dsis on the other hand a two-way conversation is impossible and when I see her I don't get a word in so I just sit in silence for hours as I've given up trying. I really doubt she is aware of it at all.

DH tends to do this, but with him the reason tends to be because he assumes he already knows the rest of what I'm going to say.

The really annoying part is that he hasn't actually listened to the first half properly, so days later he thinks I've told him something totally different to what I actually did. Because the only bit he remembers is the second half he filled in himself.

@MotherPupper I agree with Enthisiasm. The people you chat with in real life are not feeling as bad tempered about it as the ones commenting here.

Don't let it worry you- keep on being a good friend, and your friends will cope with you getting carried away!

Good friends can weather this stuff, it's the people you have to talk to and can't negotiate with that are frustrating. DM gets annoyed when toddlers interrupt her to try and speak to their parent.

Motherpupper, most of us can tell the difference between someone who's a bit interupty, and people who hog the conversation and make everything about them.

@FuchsiaBay I maybe didn’t explain myself properly, sorry. I listen, and I don’t plan my reply or obsess over how I’ll come across. I used to worry about that to the extent I was paralysed by anxiety and didn’t speak. I made a conscious decision to just try to speak rather than worry about it. But sometimes when I take that leap, because I have this residual hesitation etc, my timing is off and I’ve missed the gap, if that makes sense. I know it’s annoying and I try not to do it, but I definitely lack the skills!
As for your advice to just not do it, I wish it were that easy! Hence why I asked for any tips from people (presumably like you) who find this easy.

I do interrupt and try my best not to. I have noticed that I am particularly prone to interrupt one friend, who is given to long discourses going from point to point to point to end up at an indisputable conclusion- if I want to query Thing 1 I have to jump in before we've moved on! She used to be a university lecturer.

@willowpatterns
DH tends to do this, but with him the reason tends to be because he assumes he already knows the rest of what I'm going to say

The really annoying part is that he hasn't actually listened to the first half properly, so days later he thinks I've told him something totally different to what I actually did. Because the only bit he remembers is the second half he filled in himself

My DH does this too. I often say ”when you've finished telling me what I wasn't going to say, can I tell you what I WAS going to?”

My late DM used to do this constantly. It is infuriating. I only had to pause for a nano second to draw breath,and she'd jump in. I think this was the reason that she often couldn't remember things that I'd said,because she was so hell bent on getting her two pennyworth in. The maddening thing was that she only ever did it with me! She never did it with her friends,or even with my two brothers.

I could not tolerate someone like this, it’s the height of rudeness. I’ve come across people who do this and I do not know how they’re not mortified at themselves.

The height of rudeness? Wow, you're easily offended. As we're being relative, you don't think swearing, picking your nose or coughing without covering your mouth are ruder then? Anyway.... sometimes people interrupt because they can't get a word in edgeways or because the speaker is chatting seamlessly on many topics and there is one subject you'd like to comment on before it's long forgotten. This is something that can be done between good friends but not so with acquaintances. I suppose you could put your hand up for permission to have a turn.

Your friend must be my colleague. I find it so tiring trying to finish a sentence and having to talk loudly to be heard over her interruption.

Said colleague is not the brains of Britain either and frankly it would do her well to LISTEN a lot more than she talks because what comes out of her mouth is usually drivel.

The irony of you calling me easily offended But no I don’t find those things particularly ruder because they’re generally done absentmindedly and aren’t personal...swearing doesn’t bother me tbh, the others are just a bit gross. Talking over people, as PP’s have already pointed out, implies that you think what you’ve got to say is more important, interesting, etc. Equally, someone monopolising a conversation and not letting the other person get a word in edgeways is just as bad.