It's so awkward. I have a former co-worker friend, really nice chap and he'd do anything to be helpful, etc., but he lives alone, always has, and NEVER wants to leave once he's engaged someone in conversation.
In the warm weather I have picked up a rake and tidied my front garden and edged him toward his car, all but opening the door of his vehicle for him.
The Sunday before Christmas we had a day out together going to antique shops and garden centres; it was quite fun but we got an early start so by the time we returned to my cottage at 6pm it was 9 hours in and I'd done all the driving, about 150 miles. I had overheard him at one antique shop regaling the proprietor with a long and involved anecdote about his former neighbours from 1967, who had an identical Santa or some such in their front window. I mean, naming the neighbours by name and relationship. "So Mrs. Muggins preferred a tree in the window but once Harold, that is, Mr. Muggins as we called him, being children, saw that Santa he had to have it in the window. Their son Johnny used to unplug it as the kids would tease him..."
When we arrived back at mine, he wanted to fetch my Christmas gift from his car and then brought it inside and sat down.
Reader, he stayed another 2.5 hours. I wanted to fling myself off a cliff. He's so nice but his conversation consists of "back in 1973 my uncle Beryl was a salesman in York and his wife died at age 37; she was a real stickler and made those girls clean morning noon and night; we were all hoping when he remarried that his new wife would be kinder to the daughters but instead she turfed them out; Rebecca became a drug addict and Jane had to drop out of uni....meanwhile my cousin Pam did marry a nice bloke but they moved to Bristol and I didn't see her again till after I retired..."
or for about the 15th rendition "...that time in 1994, or no, was it 1995? 1996? I think it was when I was driving that Ford. Anyway when me and Tom went to the West End to see Petula Clark as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. She was OK in the role but they had this special hydraulic stage, it was so mesmerizing that one hardly noticed her at some points...though I do recall her costume in the closing scene...."
I mean, if he had an anecdote that took place since 2009 or so, I would love to hear it. Poor man is so nice but his life has had few highlights and he recites them all given half a chance. I had two beers while he regaled me last week and it did take the edge off.