24-7 talking

We're actually both on a family vacation together. She needs to go home is more like it (and so do I).

Do I know someone like this?

Yes.

I can see them coming a mile away - and I used to be nice about it. I think I've gotten mean in the last few years. The ones I've bumped into are older...I guess around mid to late 60s...and it starts with a comment out loud to themselves, followed closely by a cursory glance at me to see if I was somehow charmed. I feel like this is a way of getting interest from me or someone nearby to start a conversation. Why do I really dislike this method of conversation-starting?? I can't figure it out, but I can't stand it. If she'd have asked me a question or something direct, I don't think I would have been so militantly opposed to talking with her, but I felt manipulated with her first comment, and by all that is holy, I resolved not to speak to her.

...which led to me acting far more stupid than she (in both cases) did. One time, she eventually corralled my fiance into a stilted, rather tedious discussion of the weather, while I -sitting inches from him and only a few more inches from her in a small cafe -doggedly refused to acknowledge they were talking, although I was sitting right there...

I'm normally friendly to strangers - I start and join conversations with people I don't know - I wonder why I'm such a hard ass when they do this stealth comment- to- myself- to- get- your- attention thing.

Yeah - some sort of manipulations. Or at least it feels that way. I do the same active not-listening.

I used to work with someone like this. Thank God she's gone.

I get you littlek, it's not the fact they are talking, but that they are constantly talking about absolutely nothing, without a break, just to fill the air with sound waves it seems.
With this person, many times her comments didn't even make sense. It was like the random thoughts we all have (oh look, a fork. I have to get my hair cut) just constantly flooded out of her mouth, in no particular order.

With her, because of other traits she has, I personally diagnosed her with histrionic personality disorder. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, was about her.
I challenged a couple of people, who were not around her all the time, to think of something, anything, and say in front of her, and not have her somehow relate it to herself, immediately.

That was the other thing, you didn't even have to say anything. If you, let's say, used a stapler around her, that noise was enough to get her going.

Here's an impersonation of her

"rawr rawr rar rawr rawr rawr rawr. Rawr rawr rawr........"

Wandell, please, for the sake of humanity, talk to your daughter.

I think Wandel's daughter is ok - 10 year olds are supposed to be like that.

I am so glad I am not alone in this. Thanks folks!

I can see Wandel's daughter feeling a little out of place as she looks different from her father and sister so she is trying to fit in saying I want in any way I can and it is by talking too much. She is just a kid so she doesn't know how annoying it might be.

I hope Wandell realizes I didn't mean this as an insult to his daughter.

At the same time, I don't believe all 10 year olds are like this.

I feel confident that she is secure in her family. She's just 'alive' as only little 10 year old girls can be. Been there, done that. Some of my daughters friends were like this, and lordy were sleepovers fun!

You say she usually turns you down when you offer something specific. What happens when you ask open questions like "what would you like me to do to make life easier for you?" Does she suggest anything, or does she just continue venting?

On a tangent, I really hope littlek and Roberta get a chance to talk (and listen to each other) when dlowan comes to New York. The two are a gathering match made in heaven.

Oh god yes.

As Thomas mentions, its super-annoying for me because I have to use up so many resources trying to follow what ends up being pointless banal blather. This person (also a family member) also is extremely non-linear... she'll seem to be going one direction then suddenly veer, I hold the previous direction in my brain in case she comes back to it, meanwhile the veering sprouts its own branches, so I'm holding 25 different branches and then the whole thing comes to a grand finale on the order of "and the flowers were just so pretty." Oh really. That's nice. ARGH.

My daughter, who loves to talk, is also run ragged by this and retreats to a nice book or something.

Okay, you're talking about blatherers. Yes, people with diarrhea of the mouth. I have no patience for this. I talk, but I don't usually blather. Once in a while I blathered here, but I was heavily medicated at the time.

When I encounter someone like this, I don't just tune out. I shut down. I have no patience for it. I get angry, and it shows. Does it stop them? Not always. But even blatherers can take only so much glaring.

Thomas, I hope I do get to talk to and listen to littlek.

Don't worry, Chai. I didn't take it as an insult. My daughter is the most unintentionally funny person I know.

Some of her talkativeness may be due to the fact that her sister and two brothers are adults and live on their own. That makes Annie like an only child. When her older sister first moved to California I asked Annie, "Where did Katrina go?" Annie replied "Katrina is on vacation."

Katrina comes to Chicago at least twice a year and spends time with us. Once when I told Annie that Katrina left to go back to California, Annie remarked, "If she keeps going to California, she might as well live there!"

Anyway, Annie may talk alot because, in effect, she is like an only child.

You think it's an only child thing?

Mine is certainly talkative but most of her friends are too (she gravitates towards the talkative ones) and they all have siblings. (She has a couple of good friends who are only children too who are not particularly talkative.) She's almost 10.

It can be related to the fact that an only child is mostly with his or her parents. In order to interact with us, Annie pretends to be knowledgeable and will give her opinion on any subject we are talking about.

I've encountered this a few times in my life, and never hesitate to ask the person to shut the **** up for a little while and let me have some peace.

I had a co-worker who was like this once. I almost snapped and hit him with a T-square one day. I ended up quitting that job because I couldn't stand the dude.

Cycloptichorn

Genuinely curious wandel...

How do you think this will play out if she keeps doing this and people/peers:

(a) realize she really doesn't know about something, and is just talking to "interact" or be a part of it all. (some would call it running their mouth)

(b) assume she does have knowledge in something, only to later find out she doesn't.

(c) take action of the assumption she was giving sound opinions about something she doesn't know about.

I'm just sayin' that I've (I'm sure we all have), known people who do this.
It doesn't take me a long time to realize not to pay attention to anything they say, since there's no trust they know anything about the subject at hand.

Thus, the desire to interact will backfire, since they don't have credibility.

As far as it being a kid doing it, it doesn't take long for it not to be cute anymore.

The person I worked with had no problem with not only blathering away, but making up your part of the conversation in her head too.

One time, I was stuck sitting with her in an airport.
We'd just finished a very hectic 2 day business meeting. It was something like 7:30pm, and as you can imagine, all I was thinking about was getting home, taking a shower, and hitting the hay.

Despite the fact I held a book in front of my face (I think I was too tired to even read. I was just using it as a sign saying "reading, leave person alone") She of course was "rawr rawr rawr"

Trying to hold it together, I said "Mary, I'm really sorry but to be honest, I'm not really good for conversation after 7 o'clock. If I were home right now, my husband and I would both be reading, watching TV or snoozing. Just quietly enjoying each others company. I hope you can understand, but I really just need some quiet time."

She turned to a complete stranger on the other side of her, and within 5 minutes that poor soul's eyes were glazed over.

The next day, my boss said that Mary told her that I had said to her "Don't you ever stop talking? I wish you would shut the hell up"

Annie did this more frequently when she was younger. She is now in fifth grade and realizes that there are a lot of subjects that she needs to know more about. She has really made progress and is not as bad as she used to be. She now is old enough to detect when I am being sarcastic. My sarcastic remarks signal to her that she really does not understand what she is talking about and she becomes quiet. The older she gets, the more realistic she gets about her limitations.