To have reacted like this to someone who won’t allow me to get a word in edgeways?

[thaigirl]

I have a ‘friend’ who is the barmaid in our local. That’s how I met her. The first time she approached us for a chat as we sat in the beer garden and I immediately noticed how she loved to dominate the conversation. This is an ongoing thing with her. She enters in to a monologue and if you try to add your opinion or say anything at all she just keeps talking and gets louder for a few seconds, until you give up and just sit there going ‘uh-huh, oh, yeah, wow, yeah, uh-huh, yeah….’ whilst she rants on at you about herself. I find it incredibly rude and selfish to not allow anyone to talk and to impose yourself on them and just start off on a 20 minute presentation all about yourself.

Anyway, earlier this evening I was in the pub for a quick drink with DP after a long dog walk. I went to the bar to order and said hi, asked her how she was etc, expecting to get formalities out of the way and get our drinks quick. There was a small group of older men sitting at the bar doing things like reading the paper or just quietly drinking their pints. She immediately starts telling me about her ex husband and over sharing what I would think were quite private details at the top of her voice. The regulars stare awkwardly in to their drinks. Ten minutes in and she still hasn’t asked for my drink order and she’s still talking.
I tried to interject and tell her about my experience with her topic of conversation and she just cut me off time and time again. I was getting increasingly annoyed so started up to say something again and when she cut me off I made a loud noise. Think Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber 🥴
She stopped talking and said ‘what was that!’ I told her that was me losing my shit because she never lets me finish a sentence.
When I got home she messaged me to tell me that I humiliated her and she’s really upset with me. Was I horrible?

You have done her a service. She clearly does not gave the ability to pick up cues that she is monologuing and self absorbed. She thinks she is “friends” with people who can barely tolerate her and she forgets to do her job.

You were rude but perhaps she will take the hint and just take the drink orders in the future.

I worked with someone like this. When I finally broke and said, "hang on, can I finish?" she walked out of the meeting, went off sick the next day and never came back. People really don't seem to like to be asked to take a breath and give someone else a chance to speak

i can't tell if she eventually served you 🤔 YANBU!!

Yep, been there. In the end I would just walk away and leave her to it. Life is too short.

I think you did the right thing, she is self absorbed and has no self awareness

They is one hell of an overreaction

Love all these people making excuses for the air thief or blaming the OP!

Monologuing is equal opportunities, though probably skews male because they are told off less often for talking too much. I have a sister who does it and so does her husband. I have no idea how they cope when they're alone together.

It's not autism in their cases. It could be narcissism. Or just bad manners.

Spot the passive aggressive mean girl?

I had to google it (never seen the film)!

I would probably have done the hand-raised-like-you're-asking-a-car-to-stop and said loudly 'I'll come back when you're finished', which in all honesty she'd probably find even more embarrassing than your air-horn imitation. As it is the regulars will remember your air-horn far more than what prompted it!

It's rarely good to embarrass someone, but trying to stop a determined monologuer to order some drinks - well, you have to break her flow somehow. Were you horrible? Not really - the attention would have been on you making the racket and not on her. She was a mere bystander!

Did you actually get to order your drinks?

'Wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?'

Funny and great that it worked, OP!

I've had this, a friend's gf and we were often the only women out. I just told her that I wasn't interested in having conversations with her if she continued to talk over me. Tbf she did manage to rein it in a bit but it was obviously just her personality. Luckily I haven't seen her for years!

My sister's boyfriend is like this, except he's worse because he will interrupt a conversation to drone on with some tedious anecdotes about his time running a coffee shop. I avoid him at all costs and suggest you avoid this barmaid too.

Thought I was quite direct actually 😂
You’re a lone voice in a sea of opinions saying the woman was rude.

There’s a lot more socially inept idiots than people with autism. If you hear hooves, you expect horses, not zebras.

If I had witnessed this I would have thought you were insane and I would probably avoid you in the future.

Don't get me wrong, this other woman sounds annoying and I'd probably try to avoid her as well. But people who gabble on and never let anyone else speak are ten a penny. And everyone knows that all you do is let them talk themselves out and then avoid them if you don't fancy sitting through the monologue again. It's no big deal.

Whereas making a random noise mid-conversation makes you seem both crazy and mean, because it was obviously designed to embarrass someone who is ultimately just annoying bit harmless.

Never, ever, ask someone who talks too much how they are. But why are you still going to the pub knowing that she’ll be ready & waiting to talk at you?

I’ve just got home with the dog. I nipped in on my own this evening after a dog walk and settled in the garden before going in to order a drink and see how she was with me.

She was totally normal, like nothing ever happened. Busy monologueing away as per usual and talking over me if I tried to stop her. So weird!

Totally wrapped up in her own little world, no self reflection or self awareness, I wouldn’t give people like that an audience

My ex monologues at me, he has a severe case of ‘this one time at band camp’ syndrome as I call it. No matter how the conversation starts (only around the children on my end), it turns into an eternity being spoken at about him/his life. He’s 99.9% certainly autistic (not just based on the monologues but there is a lot of difficulty with understanding social communication).

How you reacted to it though, is utterly bizarre. I’m not sure at all where the ‘hilarity’ that others are seeing is at. You have been an absolute wet lettuce, refuse to straight out say ‘mate you’re going on now, can we just have our order’ or avoid the pub, then turn it up to 11 with a ridiculous vocal reaction? It’s embarrassing for everyone involved.

There’s a lot of ‘socially inept’ people who are undiagnosed. Seemingly ‘socially inept’ is very much the key part of autism. A lot of people don’t actually know what autism is as a condition.

I don’t know how anyone gets to adulthood dominating conversations like this and never pushing anyone to the point where they actually get told straight. You’ve done her a favour. She’s not a good communicator and whether that upsets her or not, you’ve given her something to think about and act on. Gentle hints clearly won’t work.

She’s autistic. Her brain is not like yours. So just be kind.

I’m really not sure that she’s autistic to be honest. She doesn’t appear to display any other symptoms, which I guess could be masking. But I think she actually just really loves the sound of her own voice and that’s that.

Haha, she’s been at this particular pub behind the bar for ten years apparently! She’s efficient at serving the regulars sitting at the bar because all they have to do it raise their hand and she’ll get on with pouring a Guinness or an IPA or something. That’s what happened during our interaction the other night. I’m standing there, purse in hand patiently waiting to order and she’s wanging on and pouring pints as requested for these older gentlemen, not pausing for a moment or breaking eye contact with me.
I can’t say she’s bad at her job but for the love of God woman, just shut up for one second and take a breath!

Maybe if you work in a bar and there are a lot of old guys ( not very talkative) sitting at the counter then she has to make most of the conversation as otherwise there would be silence…..no Idea really but seen the way that oldish men just sit there supping their pints and hardly a word out of them😂