How do you cope with people you just won't stop talking?

[neolara]

I've been wondering how others deal with people who talk non stop. I don't mean chatty people who talk a lot, but who have genuine conversations. I mean the kind of person who talks "at" you, instead of "with" you. The one who goes on and on without really seeming to notice that your eyes have glazed over. Often their non-stop talking dominates to such an extent, it is difficult for others a group situation to have conversations between themselves.

I know a few people like this, and I find them very difficult. Even if what they say is genuinely amusing and witty, I end up feeling frustrated and annoyed because it seems so one-sided. My current coping mechanism is to just let them get on with it and I fall silent. However, I think this is a pretty unproductive response. I just feel cross, they carry on blissfully unaware, the situation continues.

Now obviously I could just avoid these people, but sometimes this is not possible. Also I suspect other people have ways of communicating with "non-stop talkers" which make for more successful and interesting conversations. So that's what I'm looking for. Survival tips. So what do you do?

My exH did this. It was excruciating. I coped by divorcing him! (It wasn't actually the only reason.)
I asked him about it once, and he was well aware he did it, and that people found it really boring, but he said he just thought they should find what he was saying interesting, so he kept going as if they were listening! Bizarre reasoning. Both his parents were like it, too, so I think it came from there.

My MIL & sister are both non stop talkers - I find it unbearable. Interestingly, neither of them work outside the home, so I suspect they are never in situations where they have to rein it in - professional meeting, talking to superiors, relaying key information - so they have got into the habit of just holding forth.

I have no tips to help. I avoid their company where possible & when forced to socialise with them, I find I spend a lot of time with my head down looking at my hands under the table letting it all wash over me. They don't just talk a lot they are both full of crap, so if I really listened it would give me the rage. They are both experts in everything who know precisely nothing.

Funnily enough, my MIL commented the other day about how many people around her seem to be heavy drinkers - I wonder why?

I just pity their partners and am always glad to get back to the sanity of my lovely family & friends, who are fun and interesting people who are capable of giving a fuck about what other people say.

Non stop talkers are, when it comes to it, selfish and narcissistic - it is all transmit and no receive with them, they don't bother considering other people may have something to contribute. Avoid where possible is my advice.

My sister in law is like this. Oh i love that woman but sometimes I wish I could gag her! she's also full volume. Even if she's sat next to you in the car, she'll talk at the volume as if she's the other side of the world. I know the life stories of everyone who's ever been in her life! I don't see her that often so put up with it when I do. I've no idea how her friends cope.

I'm a talker.

I don't do it because I want to talk about myself and hold the floor. I do it because, in social situations, there should be talking happening, so if the other person isn't doing it, then I'm going to.

It's a social thing.

If you need silence, a talker is going to fill the void (out of social duty), so I think all you can do is excuse yourself. There are competing drives here: on one side need for silence, on the other a need for social contact through talking. You can't change them, they can't change you, so if their style doesn't suit you, just go find a quiet occupation or quiet place or quiet person to busy your time with instead.

Ok, if I accept the premise that 'in social situations, there should be talking happening' how the hell can I talk with (not to) someone who won't shut the fuck up?

I don't want silence, I want to be able to listen and contribute - y'know, converse - not be the passive recipient of someone's enormous self centredness.

MIL is like this, she cannot bear to have a silence unfilled. It drives me mad. Usually I'll try and change the subject or leave the room on some pretext but often she'll just carry on when I come back.

ZOMBIE THREAD***

The same way I do with people who redirect threads that are 3 years old. I curse them, mutter under my breath and find it really fucking annoying

ZOMBIE THREAD THAT'S 3 YEARS OLD

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZOMBIE THREAD

But clearly still relevant, joysmum!

Resurrected almost exactly 3 years after last posting too, which I find a little bit woo in an excitingly modern way

I have a tendency to blather on because I was trained to fill silences. I do try to STFU and ask other people questions/let them have a turn though. I actually quite like it when gregarious people turn up because I can sit back and relax...

There seem to be a lot of different reasons for over-talking, some less worthy of derision than others.

Am I the only one who can count or am I missing something? It's four years old. I thought it looked familiar (I posted the first reply on it!).

Oops! I didn't notice the date! Blame the lack of caffeine!

It's the whole being a zombie thing. Rots yer brain

I CAN COUNT, I AM CLEVER

With people I'm close to (dm) I interrupt and ask her to bullet point what she's trying to say. She rambles on about things that have nothing to do with the conversation and adds far to much detail. For instance she says she had to pop to the shop and bumped into so and so... Simple?!?! No, she tells me everything she got in the shop, where she parked, the walk into it, everything the person said along with background on their entire family, how she paid, the walk back to the car and then where she went after blah blah blah blah blah. Drives me insane.even when I ask her to bullet point she still adds a lot of info that is besides the point.

In the past I've always been the 'good listener' which actually meant I lacked confidence to talk because I thought i was boring.

If you are seen as a good listener its likely you'll stick to your role and others will come to expect you just to listen, obviously.

Talkers seem to want to fill every gap with talk, but as someone mentioned up thread being quiet for a while is okay.

My dull as ditchwater XDP talked all the time God I'm glad the boring tosser is out of my life It just became a habit - that was how it was - he talked, I listened. When I'd ask why he just kept talking he replied that he thought it would encourage me to talk

More recently I've done some OLD and met some non stoptalkers. When they've actually thought to ask about me I've not wanted share much with them because I've already seen that they are not my sort.

The new more confident me will now sometimes say to these non stop talkers, 'can you get to the point, I'm losing the will to live' or ' do you always talk this much?' or I leave 'must go now' knowing we haven't dealt with whatever i'd originally met them for - very much depends on the situation and context.

Oh my business partner is like this. I love him dearly as a friend and he is brilliant at what he does but it can be very embarrassing if we are at a meeting and our prospective clients begin to glaze over. We always have a chat beforehand about how important it is to "stay on point".

We are on the phone all day most days and see each other a lot too and sometimes I feel like I spend half of my life waiting for him to finish talking.

I often have a ready made excuse as to why I need to get off the phone as soon as we have finished talking about the necessities or why I have to leave as soon as we have the job finished. As a result, he often says I am far too busy and take too much on

Sometimes I let him indulge in his endless chatter too.

My tip is to get your excuse in early and then when it all gets too much, just dash off as pre-warned!

I live with one. He hogs every conversation, he is a bit like Lorraine Kelly, can ask a question and reply to it as well. We sit in separate rooms (he watches sport) otherwise I don't think it would have lasted. The thing is people hang on his every word.

Oh I've got a friend like this.

She doesn't do conversations. She does monologues. Everything has to be explained in minute detail. So if her car needed work to get through its mot for example, she'll spend 20 minutes going through every minute detail when the edited highlights would do.

She interrupts constantly. If I keep talking she just keeps talking too so we end up talking at the same time for as long as it takes for mr to give in.

On the rare occasions I manage to get a word in, usually she won't even bother to pretend to be interested:

Me: We had a really nice time at x restaurant the other night!
Her: hmm. Hey, did I tell you about what bil said to DH about their DM??

The sad thing is she's a nice enough person and her heart is in the right place and I think she gets quite lonely because she often mentions other friends cancelling plans to meet up at the last minute, and that it's always her that seems to make contact. I suspect that she's exactly the same with them.

I try to just stick to cinema trips with her nowadays because when we used to have fairly occasional lunches I was ending up so pissed off that I would have ended up blowing my top.

*me to give in.

There is a woman at work who wanders into my office a few times a week and talks AT me for upwards of 45 minutes unless I am rescued by my phone ringing.

She came in yesterday and I let her babble for about 5 minutes about boring shite. I then turned to her and put my hands up and said "let me just stop you there...." I turned back to my computer and started replying to emails. She just backed her way out of my office.

I know this is a zombie thread, but it's pretty interesting to me.

I am a talker. My sisters are all talkers (all 5 of us). We tumble over each other when we chat so it seems normal to us. We tell each other outright to shut the fuck up when we've had enough talking.

When I click with someone I tend to be very chatty and hold onto the friendships that remind me of my sisters. But sometimes I click with the non-chatty people and would love for them to tell me when I'm yapping too much. I'm trying to think of a way that wouldn't hurt my feelings. I think being jokey - like 'Blimey, that story was long" or coming outright and saying you'd like to tell me something for a while would be fine.

I once exhausted a friend on a weekend away without realising it. She just avoided me afterwards for about a month and finally told me why. I really wish she would have told me because I truly hadn't realised.

See it really interests me.

If you're a talker - does it never occur to you that you spent far more time talking than your audience did?

I think back to some occasions when I've met my friend for lunch, and without any exaggeration it goes:

She talks for 20 minutes.
I interject with "Oh right" and "Really?" From time to time.
I start talking.
She butts in after a couple of sentences.
She talks for 20 minutes.
And so on.

Does she really never look back and maybe think "Wow - calamity didn't say much but I seem to remember talking loads....."

Are people really that self unaware??

Do they really think that they are so interesting and important that their audience is having a wonderful time just listening to them??

You've a point there Calamity. I do look back and think "yep, we all talked". I guess when I'm relaxed with someone the chat just flows around the place and I love hearing about what other people have to say. I'm curious everyone and most things so perhaps I also pepper people with questions too much as well.
Weirdly, I need desperately to be by myself much of the time.

I do think, as a chatterer, a quick "let me get a word in edgeways" to your friend would not go amiss.

Lordy my Mum is like this. I'm not kidding when I say we can Skype for 3 or 4 hours (all time record was 7 and I'm not exaggerating).
It is a constant monologue with me just humming and hawing in the right places. I can go for pee and half a cig, come back and she won't notice that I was gone.
My DH used to ask, what did your Mum have to say? In all honesty I wouldn't be able to tell him because it just all merges. Now I take notes, bullet points.

Mainly shite about people I don't know or care about. She does ask about me and I might get 5 minutes before I am back to her.

She is fab Mum though with a heart if gold so I don't complain.

GoatsDoRoam

"I don't do it because I want to talk about myself and hold the floor. I do it because, in social situations, there should be talking happening, so if the other person isn't doing it, then I'm going to.
It's a social thing."

hahahahaha this is the funniest comment in the thread. So talkers do talk as a favour to all the rest of people, who otherwise would have to suffer through bits of silence in between :P

Goats, I am sorry but you have no idea how "social things" work. There is talk in a group, but in order to be "social", most people have to contribute and participate. Endless boring chatter coming from only one mouth is NOT social, it's individualistic and selfish. Sorry to have to tell you, but you do sound smug and as if you really believed you are doing the World a favour, while in reality the World is secretly hoping for you to shut up.