Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4

Original poster

to have a theory about people who talk all the time?

100 replies

Hullygully · 06/02/2013 11:45

We have had a few threads about this, and I have been thinking about it a lot and I have a theory. I was looking at the few friends I have who talk incessantly, largely about themselves, and realised that what they have in common is that they were all neglected as children, as in, no one listened to them, or if they did listen, they didn't "hear" them and respond and engage for various reasons.

So my theroy is that it is a "me me look at me I exist" desperate need for attention as proof of existence.

What do you think?

OP posts:

Loubychew · 06/02/2013 22:05

My Mum could get a gold medal for talking. Rarely does she stop.
I live abroad and we talk on Skype a lot. 2 - 3 hour calls are the norm with her taking 95% of the conversation. She hardly stops for breath and I can actually go to the loo and come back and she doesn't even notice I have gone.

DoIgetastickerforthat · 06/02/2013 22:30

For the type of talker your talking about, I think your right.

Both my parents can breathe through their ears once they get chatting however, the major difference is my dad, who was massively indulged had a good childhood will talk about anything, politics, who he saw in Sainsbury's, the turning circle of every car he's ever owned zzzz, it's usually a stream of consciousness sometimes interesting something deathly dull (I refer you to the turning circle convo). My mum, on the other hand was emotionally neglected as a child (and came from a large family) and talks incessantly about herself, which almost always ends up in a tale of woe or a wrong doing against her.

She is totally unaware of it and whilst it drives me round the bend (especially when I had to endure 41/2hrs pre/during and post my recent csection of every medical trauma she had ever endured), it's terribly sad that she feels so insecure that she literally cannot have a convo that doesn't centre around her.

NotGeoffVader · 06/02/2013 22:33

My theory concurs with the late, great Douglas Adams - and is best explained with this quote from HHGTG:

"One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious, as in It's a nice day, or You're very tall, or Oh dear you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you all right? At first Ford had formed a theory to account for this strange behaviour. If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up."

SchroSawMargeryDaw · 06/02/2013 22:54

I talk constantly, I don't mean to.

I was very loved by the family I have lived with most of my life and had a good relationship with them and still feel that way but I was abandoned by my Mother and my Father died when I was just about to turn 4.

I have also been sent to be assessed for Aspergers though so that may be the main reason. :)

Xmasbaby11 · 06/02/2013 23:05

I disagree. I am very talkative but had plenty of attention as a child.

Xmasbaby11 · 06/02/2013 23:08

Some people just have a lot to say! I don't talk about myself a lot. I love talking and hearing about other people, the news, etc. But I work with people who talk even more than me (teachers) so I struggle to get a word in!

MascaraMegan · 06/02/2013 23:13

I do actually agree ... I think.

I dated somebody and they would dominate every single conversation. I could talk on the phone for an hour to him and realise that all I'd contributed to the conversation was "yeah"

His father was violent towards him as a child and he walked out on them when he was still really young so ... I guess even though he was very loved by his mum he was still a neglected child maybe.

Jux · 06/02/2013 23:23

It is true for some I'm sure. The only people I've met who talk incessantly are MIL and SIL, neither of whom seems to be able to say anything of note. Completely inconsequential babble. Neither were neglected as children.

DH said to his mum once that she was incapable of listening to anything anyone else said as she was so busy thinking of what she was going to say next, herself. (Dutiful son.)

Yes, they do both want attention, MIL and SIL. No idea why though.

MrsKoala · 06/02/2013 23:25

Hmmm that's interesting. I was neglected as a child (only child left alone a lot, farmed out to people who clearly weren't keen, just get out of the way of mum and dads life, which never changed when they had me). I talk a lot, but am also constantly making people laugh, I have a quirky eccentric humour which developed in a vacuum, people seem to find me funny, so I jumped on it, as a way of people pleasing.

I used to be self obsessed in my 20's but realised this (I would leave friends realising I had not let anyone get a word in, it had been a one way koala stand up routine, yes people would laugh but it was empty with no real connection) so worked on changing. I like to think I now don't always go for the cheap laughs and really listen to people. I have an excellent memory for things and a genuine curiosity about people, from being alone so much as a child I suppose.

I won't pretend people don't baffle the shit out of me tho. I think I am endlessly enquiring because I am searching for some understanding. If I ask enough questions I hope perhaps, that I may ask the right one one day which gives me the answer I'm looking for. It won't happen of course because the answers should have been given to me as a child.

JacqueslePeacock · 06/02/2013 23:33

God yes, this is me. Am trying not to do it but I have to overcome natural tendencies to say (figuratively) "I'm here! I exist!" a lot. I wasn't heard at all as a child. My mother even used to put her hands over her ears and say "la la I can't hear you" if I wanted to talk about something emotional or troubling.

And this is my now elderly dad too. He was hidden away as a child (in the cellar, if visitors came round!) because he was illegitimate. He now never stops talking and telling everyone his opinion on everything. It's utterly maddening. I'm trying very hard not turn out like that.

Whew, that was quite cathartic.

JacqueslePeacock · 06/02/2013 23:34

Yes, MrsKoala - I identify with an awful lot of what you've just written.

HarrietSchulenberg · 06/02/2013 23:36

True for me, I think. I can talk the hind legs off a dead donkey and it could well have to do with the "be seen but not heard" culture I grew up in. Very, very loving but very, very quiet and conservative family. I was soooooo quiet when I was a child, I think I just sort of burst out it when I was about 16.

I do do two-way conversations, though. It's not all one sided (just mostly).

Loubychew · 07/02/2013 00:21

My Mum is also very dramatic, always has some saga or other to yammer on about. Repeats herself a lot too, we call it Repetetive Disorder (in private), like this....'I told you didn't I?' ....then proceeds to tell the story AGAIN and AGAIN ad nauseum.
I am quiet, like my Dad. Small bloody wonder.

DizzyZebra · 07/02/2013 00:24

I talk a lot, but people seem to engage and continue the conversation. OH glazes over but he isn't interested in the same stuff as me so its understandable.

SirIronBottom · 07/02/2013 00:40

MIL NEVER stops. NEVER stops. There is NEVER silence in a room that she is in. She will often talk over people, and what she says will not be related to what anyone else is talking about. And yes, she was neglected by her mother as a child. And has been neglected, by her husband, as an adult. And much of her conversation revolves around chances she could have had, but was denied by someone or some institution. Or something that she spent a lot of time on, but others neglected.

It would be very very annoying if it weren't so utterly sad.

Original poster

Hullygully · 07/02/2013 08:27

OP posts:

hattymattie · 07/02/2013 09:45

Have checked with DC's - they assure me they are not negleged - even when I'm not listening. I do reckon mothers have a natural "zone out" setting as if I listened to all the rabbiting that goes on I'd crack.

Glad you're back with us Hully - even though I noticed there'd been a "commotion" about three days to late;

Nancy66 · 07/02/2013 09:58

possibly - but you're all grown up now....so shut the fuck up

Ionasky · 07/02/2013 10:08

i know i talk too much - definitely anxiety related since I had DD and moved to a place where all my friends and family were hours away. I find mumsnet helps though - if i'm typing i'm not talking!

SummerRainIsADistantMemory · 07/02/2013 10:28

On the one hand I can relate to yula as as soon as dp walks in the door I find myself bombarding him with idle babble about my day. That passage yula quoted is me. I also tend to find it a bit difficult having proper conversations as as soon as I think of something I want to say I need to say it and if the other person talks for too long or changes the topic too much for me to say it I get anxious.

That being said I know a woman who I think is more what the op describes. You can't get a word in edgeways, ever. She needs to be constantly speaking and it's 99% about herself. Boring stories about her house and kids that are ten times longer than necessary and if you dare interrupt she pauses for a fee seconds and just carries on where she left off.

YulaBaker · 07/02/2013 15:32

' I also tend to find it a bit difficult having proper conversations as as soon as I think of something I want to say I need to say it and if the other person talks for too long or changes the topic too much for me to say it I get anxious.'

I get this A LOT. :)

Pendeen · 07/02/2013 17:06

"My mum talks a lot when they come to stay. My dad has never been chatty and is even more taciturn in his old age."

I noticed this with my parents, sort of thought the two things were connected!

BeaWheesht · 07/02/2013 17:10

My kids aren't neglected and talks c o n s t a n t l y.

MiL wasn't neglected and has never knowingly kept any thought to herself. She was one of 6 kids though.

One of my 'friends' is like this and she is one of 9 kids. Maybe related?

ChestyLeRoux · 07/02/2013 18:43

I talk all the time but mines the other way round my mum and dad are very helicoptery and listened to everything I said/did.I dont just talk about me though but I luuurrve talking.I always say its one of my hobbies.

HelpOneAnother · 07/02/2013 19:55

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Flip

1 2 3 4

Swipe left for the next trending thread