The art of a good conversation!

sodapop

Suppose Italy is slightly more exotic than Falmouth Callistemon other people's holidays and grandchildren are invariably boring.

I do like Falmouth but - I've been there myself

Aveline

I was very struck by one lady on my hospital visiting round who said, 'Well, enough about me. How are you?'. It occurred to me that it had never happened before. I suspect that social skills usually fall by the wayside as people grow older

Aveline that reminded me of a joke of DD's about people who go on and on about themselves.

"Well, that's enough about me. Let's talk about you. What do you think about me?".

Suppose Italy is slightly more exotic than Falmouth Callistemon other people's holidays and grandchildren are invariably boring.

LilacChaser it sounds like your stepdaughter and her husband had really missed seeing you over the years and were desperate to tell you all their news.
Kind of flattering really, and you did get a lovely meal ?

When we went to visit my step-daughter and family last month after not seeing them for about four years, she and her husband just wouldn't or couldn't pause for breath - there were two monologues going on at once, two sets of mobiles phones with photos to switch eyes across at once.

They did provide a lovely meal for us, and it was good to see them again, but they didn't even wish me a happy birthday they were so intent on talking about themselves.

We wondered afterwards how long it would take them to wind down if we didn't have to be on our way. I think we'd have probably still been there!

I'm recently bereaved and when I was trying to talk to my bloke about it, he constantly kept chipping in and talking over me about his own experiences. In the end I had to tell him to stop. It was so insensitive and unkind and frankly, selfish.

So sorry, tanith, loosing some one you can have a really good conversation with must be heartbreaking.
That’s all we are looking for………that fabulous talk that leaves you both feeling refreshed.

My problem is with a friend who constantly interrupts when a word I have said triggers off something she has to immediately talk about for a very long time! Sometimes I say when we meet"Let's not interrupt each other today". She agrees but it doesn't last long! When I complain to my DH he says you either accept her the way she is or you give up the friendship. I don't want to cause hurt but I find it all very exhausting!

Some people come from a culture where it's improper to talk about anything seriously and feelingly, and aim to keep others at arms' length. The result may be verbal diarrhoea unless they are also genuinely talented at amusing others.

Maybe they are not real friends that do this, if they were they would have a genuine interest in your life.

You can tell who would be that way on here, a poster gives an account of their situation wanting advice or support and some members ignore the opening post and go into great detail about their situation or even write about something totally unrelated.

I remember meeting a couple years ago from church. They were quite a lot older than us...more like our parents ages.

We invited them round one evening. The man asked us to tell a bit about ourselves. We had about 15 minutes. The rest of the evening was focussed on them.

I can’t remember how it went, but I’ve always been left with the feeling that we had a quick few minutes, and then we settled down to listen to them.

We were the ‘ warm up act’, they were the main production! ?. Needless to say, we never spent another evening with them. Well...we didn’t need to, there was nothing else to say.

I've encountered countless people like this, the worse ones are those that ask how you are and when you make comments about something being wrong they've had it worse than anyone else, their friends died from it, SIL is crippled by it etc etc.......I'm sure you've all come across people just like this.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202203/medium-152302-ebee1595-927d-42e3-880f-0f0227a2e603.jpeg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202203/medium-573101-2094df11-72d8-44c0-876a-e5b6076e98fa.jpeg

My mum’ s mantra was what’s on the image. When we were young, she used to say we never let her get a word in edgeways.

We have friends and relations with who it is difficult to have a conversation over the phone. It is all their woes but usually ends up with all the jaunts they have been on even during the height of Covid.
Catch them on face time and they are completely different it is as if the face to face contact tells them they have to interact and not give a running monologue.
My MIL used to bore us silly with family photos of people who we hadn't a clue who they were. One DD when young asked what T.B. meant and when asked why she said all the ladies in grannies photos that had died of it , granny said she looked like them.

I was very struck by one lady on my hospital visiting round who said, 'Well, enough about me. How are you?'. It occurred to me that it had never happened before. I suspect that social skills usually fall by the wayside as people grow older

I come from the opposite direction on this. When I've chatted on a bit I purposely put in a 'how are things with you?' only to receive monosyllabic responses followed by silences. I then chat on again and do the same 'eg how are the kids?'. 'OK'. Now this is a dear friend I'm talking about and we have a long and colourful past. I decided to call less regularly and she's immediately emailing to check if I'm ok. Can't quite figure out what's going on there but, now that restrictions are being lifted, I think I'll need to make a long train journey.

Unfortunately there are many people like that. I once worked with a colleague, whom everyone liked.
I realized why, after a while. She never talked about herself unless asked, and she always started the conversation with asking about you.

I get fed up with people like this and I know several. You ask how they are and you get theirs, their children's, grandchildren's life stories and what the budgie had for breakfast and never ask how me or mine are.

sodapop

We were treated to a lengthy day by day account of an Italian holiday, fortunately no photos. My husband said he doesn't need to visit the Trevi fountain now

We used to visit an aunt and uncle of DH and out would come the slide shows of their holidays .....
DH's Mum used to sit and nudge me and whisper "not Falmouth again" and I had to suppress my giggles.

I have a friend who asks how my DC and DGC are, when I start to answer I can hardly get a sentence out before she starts telling me how wonderful hers are.
Why bother to ask? I don't go on infinitum so why interrupt in the first 30 seconds then give me a monologue?

Then there are the friends who are rather deaf and just keep talking over the top of you non-stop.

We were treated to a lengthy day by day account of an Italian holiday, fortunately no photos. My husband said he doesn't need to visit the Trevi fountain now

its so common im afraid.sometimes people think your life is wonderful if you dont tell them your woes.listening is a gift but it often means you will get more calls to support people

Thanks Coastpath it’s not been easy and not even getting to say goodbye was especially hard.

I'm so sorry to hear that tanith.

I wonder if Covid isolation has made people more absorbed with themselves and less used to being out in society and in conversation with others?

Or perhaps it's made us less tolerant of people who are constantly self absorbed bores who are a drain on our time, patience, good manners and energy?