About people just going into monologues

[qutternutbosh]

"Our Carl was off to the airport last night, so we went to pub for our tea, we had scampi and fries, our Molly had a lemonade and some roast beef, I said to her, Molly, that's too much, she said mum, I'm hungry, I said OK then and she ate it so she must have been hungry. And then our Carl went off, I said, Carl, have you got enough time, he said he had, we went back and the traffic was just chocka as the motorways were closed so we sat there and the radio was on, that new song was on, you know, that Spanish one, I like that, so we got in and I was going to clear up but our Molly said Mum, just sit down and watch Emmerdale so I did ..."

Sigh.

Just endless pointless monologues that go nowhere and just describe the ins and outs of everyday life. It's a colleague by the way. How can you STOP people like this??

I have a very lovely colleague who does this. We are in a position though where I can often claim to be rushing elsewhere so I stand and smile just long enough to be polite then start to sort of move away. Every so often though I just let her chat - it's harmless

I'm alone with small children all day and I tend to do exactly this when I encounter a grown up.
Is your colleague a bit starved of adult interaction?

A few ideas:

Try butting in and changing the subject. Maybe to something you are working on, or saying that you are really sorry but you need to concentrate on your work.

Or get up and pretend to go to the toilet. When you get back and before she starts up again, say that you need to concentrate on what you are doing.

She's being a bore. Difficult not to offend her though.

Could you ask to be moved to a different desk?

My mother did that. She was alone a lot so when I visited she would talk non-stop.

Sometimes people don't realise they are doing it or think it is interesting or are being friendly by sharing their lives.

It can be tiring to listen to as you might miss something you need to hear if you switch off.

Not really. Agatha why the biscuit?

It does give me a bit of a headache to be honest. I'm fine for the first hour or so but then I'm thinking "shut UP!"

Haha! This is my mother on the phone

The minute I interrupt to talk about myself she very audible tunes out and then finds a reason to either bring the conversation back around to her monologue or to get off the phone.

YANBU

My hairdresser:
"I went to town & bumped into a bloke I used to go to school . He said hi, so I said hi".

That's it.
That was the thing she was telling me about. That's it.

Sigh. For an hour, that was the quality of the conversation.

DP's mother does this, pretty exhausting. So instead of relaying an incident like this:

"I bumped into X today and she says XX is expecting."

She'll do it like this:

"I got up this morning and I rang my friend and I said: "eh, I know, lets go to the cafe for our breakfast."
And she said "okay then," so I said: "great."
And then we went off and we caught the number 17 and I was just getting off near that corner shop, the one that sells the cheap tomatoes, and I saw X.
And I said to my friend: "eh, that's X."
And she said: "You what?"
And I said: "over there, it's X."
So we got a bit closer and I said "look, I'm right."
And we had a lovely chat and a catch up.
And just as I was going, I said "see you later then."
And she turned round and said:"did you hear about xx?"
And I said: "you what?"
So she says: "ooh you'll never guess."
And I said: "tell me then."
And she says: "she's expecting."

It might be a generational thing, where she was brought up (Nottingham) - but she does this all the time.

Ha, my FIL is the absolute worst. Bores for England, it is UNBEARABLE because he is also very arrogant and boorish with it.

My DM has also done it for years, but she is sweet and lovely and funny so I just nod along. She was recently diagnosed with alzheimers, so now I nod along and gaze at her adoringly as I commit everything to memory for when she is gone.

Work colleagues though, oh no...cut that shit right out.

Monologues I can cope with, just. Unfortunately it is often accompanied by a complete disinterest in letting anyone else have their go. Even a little much more interesting one

'So I turned round and said to her...'. 'and she turned round and said to me...'

Can you redirect them to Agatha?

Seriously though, YANBU. My colleague does this - I've started ignoring her while continuing to work away at my computer. It's even worse when people close their eyes while delivering the monologue.

Yeah, my Mum does this.
I've just had 45 minutes of it. On top of that, I usually have to hear the same old shite more than once. She's not very elderly and doesn't have dementia or anything like that, she's always done it. She's just very self absorbed and dramatic.
Not.fucking.once. did she ask about me, how was my day was.On the rare occasion that she does ask, I might get 2 minutes but I can tell she can't wait to turn the convo back to her start boring some more.
I could write a book.

I think MommyisBusySean and I have the same mother.

YANBU. I have a family member who does this so I just tune out - unfortunately it means I sometimes miss actual news. So in your example I'd have completely missed the pregnancy news, which I might actually have care about, because I've been thinking about something else with a glazed expression and saying, "Mmm hmm" at intervals.

I feel your pain OP as I work with a colleague who does this and it drives me insane. They are actually lovely and I get on with them but they go on and on..and on..and on. The conversations tend to centre around children and I will get a blow by blow account of last nights bedtime routine. I sometimes want to butt in and say do you want my bedtime routine??? Why is it so interesting just because it involves children???? they have another annoying tendency to repeat the same stories every few weeks as well.

I'm fine for the first hour or so
How do you manage that long?! I get this from a fellow dog-walker sometimes (if I don't see her in time to hide) and after 5 mins I've glazed over and am losing the will to live.

I have an aunt like this. She once rang for my mother (who wasn't in), and proceeded to speak for an hour and a half straight, in which time I spoke precisely three words. Not because I'm rude, because I literally couldn't get a word in. I don't think she even stopped to take a breath - she did manage to insinuate I was fat a few times though. I still remember it to this day, as I refused to answer the phone for months after.

I find people like that exhausting, I avoid them at all costs. I genuinely think it's some sort of nerves, anxiety or similar as I don't think incessant talking is really normal.

Had a colleague like this. It was a small office, and it was really distracting. Are you allowed headphones? Even if you don't actually want to listen to music it's a good visual cue.

My MIL does this.

She's a Lady who Lunch's.

There a recount of where every everyone sat, what they ordered, what they wore, who else was in the restaurant, which waitress was on, who said what..blah.....blah...zzzz

My sister does this. She once launched into a monologue about how annoying it is when people talk to you while you're trying to watch TV. To my brother. While he was trying to watch TV.

We used to have Skype marathons, sometimes for many hours.
In fact, my Mum talks so much, without hardly stopping for breath that I could walk away from the PC, go to the loo, have a few puffs on a cig outside and come back without her knowing I'd gone. On and on and on, going off at tangents, boring me senseless with long winded tales about people I have no interest in or don't know, then repeating it.

Oh god, people who do this are so boring. And they don't care a bit about the listener - there's no interest in that person at all.

I had a neighbour who used to do this - I bumped into her in the supermarket once and she talked for an hour and a half without pausing for breath. She used to start story after story so that at the peak there'd be eight or ten stories on the go, then she'd wrap them all up. It was a real skill. But when I saw her in the supermarket and she was still on her upward arc, I saw someone else we knew, dragged her over and scarpered, so she got the tie ups of the stories.

PuppyMonkey you should be a script writer for a soap with that dialogue .

I'm surrounded. My in laws all do this. My mum can at times as can DH. I went for lunch yesterday with friends and one does this a lot, in fact I don't think I spoke once.

The worst ones are recalling of tv shows. My FIL will transcribe how a toilet is made word for word from a documentary he has watched.