What do you do when someone dominates the conversation?
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What’s a monologist you ask? Well, it is that person we all know who doesn’t understand the concept of a dialogue. A dialogue being a conversation between two people. With a monologist, even though two people are present, only one is talking – and it isn’t you.
The monologist is a paradox. On one hand he or she wants desperately to be heard and understood. On the other, their behavior makes the listener shut his or her ears and resent being in the monologist’s presence. The monologist senses this, and instead of handing the conversation over to the listener, out of increased anxiety he presses forward with even more determination.
Unfortunately, if you are polite or Canadian, not only does the monologist suffer, but so do you. Because you are too polite to interrupt, or scream at him to shut up, or to simply walk away. No, for you, suffering is the order of the day. You have thoughts like: this is just the way he is, he’s my friend, our relationship is important, I don’t want her to get mad at me. Mad at you! Talk about projection. You are furious at the person’s incessant babbling, racist remarks, and endless stories and you don’t want them mad at you?
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Monologists have other traits that support their behaviour. They are able to talk without breathing for great lengths of time. They have a keen sense of when you will try to get a word into the conversation and they pick up the pace, get louder, or become emotional. Even if you do manage to get in a word edge-wise, for it will never be more than a sentence, it is as if you have not spoken at all. The monologist picks up the conversation right where they left off. And this is how you feel – left out.
In a sense, the monologist is a bully. They are verbal bullies of the first order. There is no second order with monologists. It is life or death with them. When two monologists happen to come into the same space they will try to avoid each other. When avoidance is impossible, only one will end up talking after an initial flurry of cannon shot across the bow. The one with the biggest voice is usually the winner, and the loser sinks to the bottom of the sea without a peep for the rest of the night. It is a sad sight to behold.
The winner, of course, is emboldened by their victory, and now has a captured audience to regale, in their mind, and bore, in ours. Fortunately, there is power in numbers and at these occasions there will be, after a short while, a splintering off of side conversations consisting of two or three people, and eventually the monologist realizes that the focus has shifted and they are not the center of attention.
A true monologist though, is not deterred. A monologist is by habit, an optimist. At least in their belief that there is always someone who will listen to them without complaint. And there is usually an all too polite person somewhere in any group. This leads to an unfortunate reinforcement of the monologist’s belief that people want to listen to them. Because they have never been confronted, they genuinely believe that what they say is important. After all, everyone listens, so they talk, on and on. The monologist may even get tired and want you to interrupt. But oh no, you are just too polite.
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So who is to blame? The monologist or you? Are you just enabling the monologists of the world by constantly reinforcing their delusional self-belief that everyone loves to listen to them? We are encouraging the monster to continue his bad habits. It is easy to point the finger. The monologist is loud, aggressive, possibly even threatening. Sometimes they may even be intelligent and most definitely they are full of opinions – on everything.
The monologist is the monarch and we are the dutiful peasants. But we have a weapon. It is the same weapon that the monologist has – a voice. I say rise up, let your voice spill forth and silence the beast, at least for ten seconds while you state your opinion on the subject. If you have been enslaved for a long time, revolution is the order of the day and you will have to confront the monologist directly with their behavior and say . . . “Hey, this is a dialogue, not a monologue, and I have something to say.”
If that doesn’t work, become a writer and create your own monologues.
Photo: Flickr/Paul Townsend/Bristol’s Wild Bunch
Steven, what a great description of a monologist. In the Mediate Your Life course (mediating internal and external conflicts), one of the many skills we work on developing is ‘interrupting’. i have a ways to go on this but it is critical in these situations.
I like the assignment of not initiating and only responding in 5 words or less. It is time to try that with my daughter (age 16). I divorced her father (when she was 6) who had that trait as well as other more harmful habits. When people walk away she just follows them. I have had to have years of counseling to be able not freak out when she corners me due to the abuse I suffered by her father. Her step-father and I have been working on the continuous talking thing for years now without much progress. Do you… Read more »
Hi April: I haven’t addressed it directly in any of my current works. What’s coming to me now is to do a video. If you email me I can let you know when it is done. While you are waiting, have you ever taken your daughter to therapy?
This was interesting and perfectly timed. But how to react? I would have loved to hear more about the writer’s ideas and suggested tactics. My own include doing something to radically shift the energy in the room — bring out a cake, drop a dish — which can sometimes pull everyone else out of their trance and dog-leg the discussion in a fresh direction. Or, if I’m alert, I’ll jump in during a micropause in the monology and ask someone ELSE in the room a leading question, praying that everyone else is as sick of the monologist as I am… Read more »
Hey Colin: I like your spontaneous and radical intervention – shake it up with a surprise. Try and wake people up. And I believe you are right, monologists are very insecure.
My mother’s like that and even just leaving the room when she’s going on and on about things that she knows we’re not interested in isn’t sufficient. It’s as if she doesn’t even recognize that there’s somebody else that’s supposed to be responding.
It’s not just the amount of stuff that she talks about, it’s the fact that she knows it’s of no actual interest and that she’ll not even bother to consider what I’m doing. To her, my reading a paper represents no shred of clue that I’m not wanting to talk.
This must be incredibly frustrating Frank. I too have had relatives like this. One time one of them (whose name shall remain anonymous) took a human potential workshop. Her assignment was to not initiate conversation and if people asked her a question, she could only answer with five words or less. I thought she was going to have a fit. She did keep to her assignment and it made a difference in her life. And when she starts to fall into old habits, I am willing to call her on it as she knows what I am talking about –… Read more »
Yeah, I’ve tried telling her, but she’s one of those rather stubborn women that won’t listen to anything that anybody else says. On some level she does listen because if I harp on something long enough she’ll switch from not hearing it to being very upset about how everything is always her fault. In truth everything isn’t always her fault, but since she absolutely refuses to listen to what anybody tells her, there’s little if any incentive to compromise or accept any responsibility. She’s my mother and I love her, but it’s almost completely impossible to work with her because… Read more »