By David Futrelle
Today, a story of quiet heroism from the Relationships subreddit about a woman who figured out an ingenious way to shut up her husband’s college pal after listening to him talk non-stop for several days. Indeed, it was so effective she feels a little bad about it. But she shouldn’t. She is an inspiration to us all!
Heck, even if the story is totally made up, like a lot of stuff on Reddit, I still love the way her mind works. (And I apologize in advance for only having screenshots; the post was removed; click on the pic for slightly larger versions.)
Please be true, please be true, please be true.
H/T — @chaeronaea, who posted about this on Twitter, and from whom I borrowed the screenshots.
The only thing which would’ve been funnier is if she’d drunk his milkshake.
let’s call it a parable, folks. maybe not ENTIRELY true, but certainly a story with a lesson to learn!
I have horrible problems trying to concentrate in a noisy environment. My attention is constantly dragged away from what I am doing to consider the sound.
I have a suggestion that made a huge difference for me. Get a pair of target shooting headphones. Wear them when loudmouth is in the vicinity. If you can still hear him, wear earplugs under the phones, or earbuds playing music/ audiobook with the headphones.
Buttercup Q. Skullpants, who has much more faith in humans than I’ve been able to maintain over the course of 48 years on a planet full of them, skrev:
And if the foreign-black-liberal-gay-Mexicans are getting hurt worse, they’ll keep on cheering for that, whilst, and at the same time, continuing to blame their own suffering on the fact that foreign-black-liberal-gay-Mexicans have not yet been completely eradicated even as an abstract concept. Unistat, at this point, is not so much a nation as a cult compound with borders and an anthem.
Moon_custafer,
Thank you. Downloaded it.
@Tony
Same, except this guy likes to complain about costumers in front of said customers.
I would have left for a hotel before I would do something like that.
Who put the notion into the heads of these people that bad manners plus bad manners would result in good manners?
It is not in any way similar to the maths where multiplying a negative with a negative results in a positive.
When you add a negative to a negative you get a larger negative and both are the worse for it.
I don’t know. Though I suspect that this story is made up, and I’m aware that many men are socially conditioned to talk over women in general, this is an example of the worst way to deal with someone like this.
I’m female and I have this problem (talking over people and dominating conversations). Worse, I have one of those low-register voices that means it’s impossible to speak at a normal volume, so I yell everything I say like Samuel L. Jackson (kidding, but not by much). There are many reasons for this—being non-neurotypical is one (an unfortunate combination of high-functioning ADHD, an outgoing personality, inability to interpret non-verbal social cues, social anxiety, and poor social conditioning in spite of friends and family’s dogged attempts at home-training—case in point, this comment will probably be unintentionally long and full of unnecessary parenthetical clauses).
While I can’t speak for everyone, I know that I am acutely aware that this isn’t socially acceptable nor cute in general, and I try to mitigate my behavior as best as I can with sincere apologies, self deprecating jokes, and checking myself, lest I inadvertently wreck myself (admittedly, I don’t always remember to do the last one if I’m really on a roll). Being aware of this actually exacerbates some of the root causes of this problem, increasing social anxiety and, depending on the person, contributing a degree of resentment towards social norms (this making the person more likely to flout those conventions out of spite). This is NOT an excuse, and there are situations where this is NOT acceptable behavior. Especially in the workplace, in situations or conversations that are very clearly not about that person, and when the subject of conversation is obviously something that person knows nothing about. In those situations, it is on that person to behave appropriately, and STFU, even if it is exponentially hard for them to do so.
Usually, a self-aware person will stop if someone politely points out their behavior, but this is not guaranteed to work for long, or at all. Calling them out passive-aggressively or aggressive-aggressively, attempting to embarrass them sometimes works and might feel incredibly satisfying, but will make a sh@$#y situation even sh@$#ier (the exceptions being if the offending party is being belligerent, openly hostile to other people, or acting out in a way that is dangerous to the people around them).
The best ways to deal with it are to talk over the person as good naturally as possible and in a way that doesn’t directly put them on the spot. Sometimes, interrupting the person with phrases, such as “let’s put a pin in that,” “that’s interesting, (insert point/opinion) do you think?” or “(someone in the social group’s name) has interesting opinions/experience with that (then directly ask the named to contribute) will also do the trick (unless you are talking the the Micro Machines guy, everyone takes natural pauses, just time it to where you think a natural break in the topic would be at the natural end of a sentence). It seems rude and counterintuitive, but a self-aware person will take the hint, and said person will probably not take it personally since they habitually talk over or interrupt people. Unless they are hypocrites, they will appreciate the graceful out, and they are likely to remember it and be more mindful in future interactions. In my case, you will have an ally for life, and sometimes it’s beneficial to have a strong personality-type having your back in future situations where you’re actually dealing with a toxic douche, and not just a well-intentioned, annoying-but-mostly harmless douche like me.
If you are the type that would rather avoid any confrontations in social situations, consider pulling the person to the side and expressing your discomfort/annoyance with them one on one. If neither one of these solutions work for you, you can silently walk away, situation allowing (in a work environment, discussing the problem privately with a supervisor and letting them deal with the person can also work, with the added benefit of it being their job to do so).
I guess it just depends on whether or not said person is being a toxic douche or just annoying but mostly harmless. Stewing silently about it is unhealthy, and aggressive public confrontations can make situations worse. Unfortunately, there are many times that these are the only available options. If someone is a personality type that can or will not assert themselves in the ways described above, or fear personal reprisal for doing so from work or social groups due to societal gender expectations or such, I don’t have anything helpful to add, other than it is sometimes necessary for introverts to step up, just as it is for extroverts to step back. Everyone can stand to be a little more emotionally intelligent, IMO, regardless of their personality type.
In France, when someone interrupts you rudely, we say he’s “cutting your words” (couper la parole). Once, I was in a group and one guy kept interrupting me and everyone. I eventually gave him some paper glue in front of everyone. He stared at me and asked why I was doing that and I said: “You keep cutting my words. Now glue them back together!”
I know it was silly and childish but he looked so funny afterwards!