Friday, April 06, 2007

AndsothenIdidthisanditwassoamazingthatI'lltellyouthestoryforthenexttwentyminutesokay?

Katelyn and I went to 1835 tonight and it was amazing fun. Lots of people from the service went for dinner at IHOP afterwards; fun ensued. As Forrest Gump would say, thats all I have to say about that.

So, in the past two weeks I've encountered two people that have clearly not learned the art of conversation, more specifically, the turn-taking part. Usually, you say something and I respond and add something that you respond to etc. . . but not so with these two. They just keep talking and talking and talking with the only chance to respond is "mmhmm". Tangents pop up out of no where until I don't remember what point they were discussing in the first place.

With the first, I said "hello" without knowing what I was getting into. Five minutes later, I manage to extricate myself from the monologue about 30 years of teaching experience. Oh. My. Goodness. I backed up, she followed. I said the normal good-bye type things, "well. . . I better go", "thanks for sharing that with me", "it was nice to meet you", "I'll see you tomorrow". . . it didnt work. I left when someone else walked by and made the same mistake. I bolted.

With the second, I was in a group situation and this person kept talking and talking to me and I couldnt participate in the conversation with the rest of the group. "uh-huh" "I see" "oh?" "mmhmm" "I guess so" "thats interesting" . . . Hello? How do you get out of it? I'm listening to someone recap the entire set of some comedian I've never heard of. Other people at the table are rolling their eyes.

So, what do you do? They are nice people, they are just painful to talk to. Do they not have any idea? Is there a nice way to explain to them whats wrong? Do they care? Would that be appropriate?

There should be classes for this.

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