The Over-Talker

by Meredith Maslich

I was at a small party a few weeks where I didn’t know many people. Soon after we got there, my boyfriend and I sat across from another couple – we’ll call them Bill and Karen – who, upon initial observation, seemed funny and interesting.

So I made a point to laugh, make eye contact and offer comments on their stories in an attempt to engage them so that my boyfriend and I would have someone to talk to.

I was successful in getting Karen’s full attention pretty quickly, though Bill continued to spread his attention around the group, which was fine with me. I was just looking for someone to talk to other than my boyfriend – not because I didn’t want to talk to my boyfriend, but because everyone makes fun of me when I go to a party and spend the entire night  talking only to him.

The speed with which I acquired Karen’s attention should have been a red flag, but I was a little rusty with my social cues. A few years ago I would have seen where this was going immediately and taken evasive action.

Karen was an “Over-Talker”.

Which is different than an “Over Sharer”. An Over Sharer tells you personal details about their life that make you uncomfortable. An Over Talker just uses too many words, most of them boring, and keeps talking way after everyone’s attention has drifted.

This is why she was so quick to give me her attention – she’d already lost the rest of the group, and was excited for fresh blood.

Another way to spot an Over Talker is that even after they’ve clearly lost everyone’s attention, they will continue to talk, sometimes with escalating volume or gesticulation, until they either get someones attention, get distracted, or finally run out of words. But the point is that they rarely make the decision to stop talking on their own.

Typically, people respond to an Over Talker by interrupting, refusing to make eye contact, or employing any of the standard cuesto abandon your story.

Most people have a natural instinct that allows them to disengage with an Over Talker. But not me. I over empathize with Over Talkers. See, I was once an Over Talker. (Some might say I still am, and to them I say “Call me! I miss you!”) And like many Over Talkers, I was a storyteller at heart, but without an understanding of:

a) how to edit out unnecessary details,

b) how to make necessary details interesting

c) how to read the audience

And Karen had good openings, which made me want to interrupt her and provide some coaching. But I didn’t because that will actually kill a party faster than you’d think.

But it got me thinking about the phenomenon of the Over Talker, which at its core is simply the phenomenon of the undeveloped social storyteller.

I think that at some level, all Over Talkers know that what they’re doing isn’t working, but they don’t know what to do differently.

So to them I say simply, just do anything different to start. Maybe start with just shutting it down when you feel the attention of the listeners shifting. That will increase your social capital with your friends, which will serve you well the next time you start to talk.

And to those of you who find yourself with an Over Talker, I can only ask that you be kind to them. Drift away during the gardening story if you must, but give them another listen during their dead dog story. For me.