Try to tell me when you've heard enough

Sometimes I like to have fun with my columns. Sometimes I send a discreet message for someone in particular. Sometimes I do both. This is a column I wrote in 2014 after one of many conversations with a person who talked so much that I couldn’t get a word in. If you think you know who it was, you’re probably wrong. 

There is little that is more frustrating than someone who keeps going on and on, talking and refusing to take a break or a breath in order to listen to what others have to say to them, even though those people might have something to offer to help the person to learn something or have a better understanding of a subject, whatever it may be, but that conversation never happens because a conversation involves at least two people interacting, one talking and one listening and vice versa, rather than a lecture, which involves one speaker and one or more listeners, who may not have the opportunity to speak, which may be because the speaker believes that what he has to say is so important that no one else can add something of value or because the speaker simply isn’t interested in hearing from anyone else, and so continues to rattle on, ignoring attempted interjections, gestures or a wide variety of body language that are intended to allow the listener to become a participant and create a conversation that, even though it would be on point, is basically ignored, leaving at least one of the parties frustrated or tired from the futility of failed attempts, which may result in a wide range of reactions –from anger to lack of interest –on the part of the listener and a growing sense of self-importance on the part of the speaker, who continues to talk, believing all of his words are falling on attentive ears that are eager for his next bits of wisdom, which may improve that person’s life but certainly will impress that listener with the level of knowledge and understanding that is flowing from a person, who perhaps at some time in his life was on the other end of such an experience, which no doubt frustrated him to such a degree that he vowed to himself that he would never again be dominated in conversation and so set his mind to not only share his vast array of knowledge and experience but also to establish his dominance in any interaction with others, the result of which is a long, drawn-out monologue that so engrosses the speaker that he seems to fall into a trance that is further deepened by his own ego, which builds his belief that nothing in the world is more important than his thought process and the valuable advice that results from it, and so he continues to drone on, often repeating what he has said several times because he believes it is essential to make his point, and then, just when you sense he is about to pause and provide an opening for dialogue, he gets his second wind seemingly without even taking a breath and begins another chapter, which may enforce what he already has stated or may digress into a completely unrelated issue that for a short time he believes is equally important but which serves only to provide a break in the monotony until he realizes, possibly midsentence, that he has gone off-track and perhaps suddenly or more likely gradually works his way back to his initial point, which will result in sending the listener into a deeper coma or increase his frustration to the point that he is tempted to walk away, but doesn’t do that out of common courtesy, which is ironic given the circumstances, or because the alleged discussion may require some outcome from what has become an unbalanced interaction involving one person who has become the only person talking and listening – to himself – and another who, because he has no opportunity to do the former, ceases to do the latter, and when given the opportunity to finally respond to the speaker’s ultimate question, “Don’t you agree?” is left, after taking a long, deep breath to be sure it is finally his turn to participate, with only one logical and clear response: No.

And there you have it: the long and the short of a one-sided discussion.