One of my biggest pet peeves are people who ramble on, and on, and on. You ask them a simple question like “How’s the weather where you are?” and they go on for twenty minutes beginning with a discussion about their car and how they just washed it, and they had to wash it again, the pool cover wasn’t on, and so now the pool has to get cleaned, and then the discussion moves to how there’s too much chlorine in their pool and they think it’s stinging their eyes, and it just goes on from here. All I asked was “how’s the weather?”. A simple answer of “it rained last night” would suffice. I was really only making conversation to begin with, and I didn’t even care what the weather was like. My fault. I should have never asked.
I’ve found through my trails of life that there are many people out there like this. I can remember countless times someone asking a question in a meeting at my office, and by the time the person took a breath, I had already forgotten what the question was, but rest assured we were not getting an answer. It seems like this is usually the case with the “rambler”. They’re asked a question and by the time someone cuts them off not only has your question not been answered, but they have you so confused that you begin to think maybe you’re the one who missed something. Maybe you asked a stupid question, or maybe their answer has something deeper than you’re understanding? I’m often the one who’s cutting the rambler off after about ten or so minutes once I realize that the conversation is going nowhere. I’ll stop them mid sentence and repeat my question. This of course makes them feel stupid. Then I feel badly. But why should I , they’re the ones who can’t answer a simple question like “how’s the weather?”. The truth is I wish I had more patience for these people. I wish I could sit there and hear them through to completeness just so I can try to figure out what the hell they are talking about and why don’t they just answer a question, or stick to the topic? The rambler is an interesting breed and I’d love to understand why they do what they do. Someday when I muster up enough patience to listen to them, maybe I’ll finally figure them out. Of course that could mean the end of the world.
Shit. It suddenly occurs to me, that I might be rambling – so I think I’ll stop here. How’s that saying go about hating in others what you most hate in yourself? Crap.
Tags: conversation, rambling
August 19, 2011 at 12:26 pm |
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