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My apologies if there's already a thread on this but I couldn't find it.
Do you have people who just will not end a telephone conversation?
I know two people like this, and when I call them I always allocate enough time for a LONG conversation -- maybe an hour or so.
But even after that, they will just keep going. I'll say, "Well, I need to ring off" or "It's time for me to hang up and get to bed" but they are completely undeterred.
What's the best strategy?
On a few occasions I've literally said, "Okay, I'm exhausted and am hanging up in two minutes." However, I feel kind of bad about that.
Just say, "OK, I gotta go. I'll talk to you soon. Bye." And hang up.
That last part is key....hanging up. Because if you do not hang up, the other party keeps talking to you. So just hang up. Click. Off. End. Whatever your phone does.
That last part is key....hanging up. Because if you do not hang up, the other party keeps talking to you. So just hang up. Click. Off. End. Whatever your phone does.
When I say that to one of these folks, they will invariably say, "Wait! let me tell you one more thing...."
It's family so I hate to just hang up, although I have done that several times over the years.
When I say that to one of these folks, they will invariably say, "Wait! let me tell you one more thing...."
It's family so I hate to just hang up, although I have done that several times over the years.
If you actually want to be off the phone with them then you might have to keep it up. You could do the polite but urgent "I'll call you right back" excuse but don't actually call them back the same. which means you got to get your acting and the tone of your voice on point. Say they just won't shut up, just take a quiet deep breathe, get your head into urgent mode and say ' Nancy, Nancy (obviously insert the actual name or salutation, with a panicking tone) I really have to have to go but I'll call you back' and you just don't call back. Of course you can't do that all the time because they might catch up and call you out on it, so rotate to a different strategy.
One old friend has a habit of saying, "Well, I just wanted to tell you..." then rehashing what they have just been talking about for the last fifteen minutes of a two-hour long conversation (not my choice, believe me!) when I make efforts to conclude things.
Drives me nuts.
I don't call this friend as often as I once did, sadly. This is not the only issue, but the friendship has become rather burdensome, due to this and more significant personality issues.
I still value my friend and our shared experiences - but our paths have diverged considerably and our personalities have become more, I don't know, "set" as the years have passed - in very different patterns.
I find myself having less and less in common with this friend, and also find that the friend has some very inaccurate assumptions about me, which are entrenched and immovable (innocuous example: my friend thinks I love puns. I don't, but will laugh politely or groan. My friend is also extremely sensitive and would make a huge deal of it if I clarified my lack of love for puns, so it's easier just to let it go. More and more of this sort of thing crops up, and it gets wearisome....
But - this same friend is generous, would do anything in the world for me, loved my late immediate family, and was a good friend to me when I was young and living in a large city where I knew very few people and was dealing with a truly sociopathic supervisor (I do not exaggerate).
My friend just doesn't really know me very accurately any more, and that saddens me. But not enough to stay on the phone for two or more hours, then listen to a rehash of the conversation...
Last edited by CraigCreek; 08-24-2015 at 03:35 PM..
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