Your sitting with a group of people, most you don’t even know personally. Then that moment comes when you find it hard to keep your cool because you really want to call out that one person, who for some reason, has to interrupt every single conversation that gets started between you and someone else.
Every time someone asks you a question to start a conversion, that one person has to chime in almost immediately. Even leaving a conversation that they were having with another person, just to jump in on yours. Maybe, because its more interesting or they just don’t want to miss out on any conversation, period. Usually it’s with a topic that is somewhat related, but not quite… Seems the intrusion is solely designed to turn the attention back to themselves, just so they may get someone to stroke their ego or so they may bask in the glow of all the attention.
You find that the conversations that you are trying to enjoy, now, have all become just snippets of conversations, and you never really get to have a single, satisfying exchange with anyone seated there (as long as that person is present). Worse yet, she has brought her 15 year old son along, probably to create a deterrent to anyone who wished to politely tell her to f*** off and, on top of that, you have to sit through the entire event while she fawns over him – almost as if the secondary reason for bringing him, is to show him off.
I used to belong to a poetry group. One member, a sixty something, white male, was quite loud and always had to be reminded to use his ‘inside voice’. He liked to dominate every conversation that took place and it always turned into a ‘pissing contest’ every time anyone else tried get a word in. I remember how happy I felt whenever there was a lull and I was able to interject. Sadly, Mr. Loudmouth would bellow, “Can I get a word in here???” bringing the table to total silence, as we all sat and stared. Yet, even though it should have come as kind of a lesson, he wouldn’t get it, and would just start in with whatever it was he wished to say, without care or regard to anyone else present, as if we were all there for him.
Are people so terribly in need of attention, that they have developed these agonizing, irritating, behaviors when in groups? All throughout my childhood, adults were always saying, wait your turn, be polite, be respectful, don’t butt in line, etc. etc. Yet, it seems manners have fallen out of fashion. You will see in most meeting situations that rules of order have been established, so that everyone may speak. Verbal exchange is important to human beings and if you are anything like me, having a positive exchange with another person is rewarding in itself.
Yet, the chance of it happening outside a group of two people (just one on one), probably isn’t going to happen. As you sit with others, there always seems to be that one person who floats like a vulture overhead, just waiting for that moment to drop in on any conversation that they can relate too and then do so in an impulsive manner. Moreover, it really is a matter of controlling ones impulse… and maybe developing the ability to stop acting like a needy infant, too young to grasp the concept of order.
Ann Morrow Lindberg- “The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere. That is why so much social life is exhausting; one is wearing a mask.” (and probably because you are with someone who is just rude!)
Every time someone asks you a question to start a conversion, that one person has to chime in almost immediately. Even leaving a conversation that they were having with another person, just to jump in on yours. Maybe, because its more interesting or they just don’t want to miss out on any conversation, period. Usually it’s with a topic that is somewhat related, but not quite… Seems the intrusion is solely designed to turn the attention back to themselves, just so they may get someone to stroke their ego or so they may bask in the glow of all the attention.
You find that the conversations that you are trying to enjoy, now, have all become just snippets of conversations, and you never really get to have a single, satisfying exchange with anyone seated there (as long as that person is present). Worse yet, she has brought her 15 year old son along, probably to create a deterrent to anyone who wished to politely tell her to f*** off and, on top of that, you have to sit through the entire event while she fawns over him – almost as if the secondary reason for bringing him, is to show him off.
I used to belong to a poetry group. One member, a sixty something, white male, was quite loud and always had to be reminded to use his ‘inside voice’. He liked to dominate every conversation that took place and it always turned into a ‘pissing contest’ every time anyone else tried get a word in. I remember how happy I felt whenever there was a lull and I was able to interject. Sadly, Mr. Loudmouth would bellow, “Can I get a word in here???” bringing the table to total silence, as we all sat and stared. Yet, even though it should have come as kind of a lesson, he wouldn’t get it, and would just start in with whatever it was he wished to say, without care or regard to anyone else present, as if we were all there for him.
Are people so terribly in need of attention, that they have developed these agonizing, irritating, behaviors when in groups? All throughout my childhood, adults were always saying, wait your turn, be polite, be respectful, don’t butt in line, etc. etc. Yet, it seems manners have fallen out of fashion. You will see in most meeting situations that rules of order have been established, so that everyone may speak. Verbal exchange is important to human beings and if you are anything like me, having a positive exchange with another person is rewarding in itself.
Yet, the chance of it happening outside a group of two people (just one on one), probably isn’t going to happen. As you sit with others, there always seems to be that one person who floats like a vulture overhead, just waiting for that moment to drop in on any conversation that they can relate too and then do so in an impulsive manner. Moreover, it really is a matter of controlling ones impulse… and maybe developing the ability to stop acting like a needy infant, too young to grasp the concept of order.
Ann Morrow Lindberg- “The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere. That is why so much social life is exhausting; one is wearing a mask.” (and probably because you are with someone who is just rude!)
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