MIL talks and ask questions incessantly

[Anonymous]

My mom is like this. Interestingly, my husband is one of the few people in the family who does really well around her and even sticks up for her when somebody expresses their annoyance with her. She's worse around people she's just met, people she isn't around very often, or when she's the fish out of water. She prattles on and on, and interrupts people to ask sometimes very weird questions, or tell a really odd anecdote. The looks she gets sometimes. I honestly don't think she realizes how annoying it is. I mean, there are times I feel like she's worked herself up into frenetic energy with her prattle and questions. And she can't follow the conversation because she's busy interrupting the person next to her; so then she butts in to the main convo saying something totally irrelevant.


But actually, I notice that a lot of people seem to really like her. I could see how she can be good at bringing people out of their shells or bringing up topics of conversation during a lull. Because sometimes she's pretty genuine and normal (just so word vomity).

So I think it's a combo of genuine interest in others; and social anxiety (oddly, she keeps an extremely busy social and volunteer-work calendar, so she's not afraid to be around people). Like a PP said, she's anxious but doesn't seem to know it.

I have social anxiety which causes me to be really shy and clam up, likely because my mom always did all the talking. If somebody asked ME how school was going, my MOM would butt right in and answer, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Coming from an entire family of talkers (including myself), a few tips on how to tone it down (you will find it hard to eliminate completely)

- periodically excuse yourself to do something in another room. If she moves to follow, just discourage her "No, no...you just sit here and enjoy your coffee. I'll be back in a few minutes."
- when you are working on something that needs your attention, it is fine to say something like "Oh, excuse me, Ann, but I just need to concentrate on this for a few minutes and we can talk again afterwards."
- if you need a few minutes break, just say so. "I'm sorry, but I'd like a few minutes of quiet. I'm not used to talking so long at a stretch. Would you like a magazine?"

As long as you do not constantly blow her off, and you engage her and talk with her between spells, you won't be sending the signal that you don't want to talk to her. But you can buy yourself some periods of quiet politely.

What is a "family of talkers"? How can the whole group not know that they are weird and annoying? Don't people call them on this and tell them to STFU?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coming from an entire family of talkers (including myself), a few tips on how to tone it down (you will find it hard to eliminate completely)

- periodically excuse yourself to do something in another room. If she moves to follow, just discourage her "No, no...you just sit here and enjoy your coffee. I'll be back in a few minutes."
- when you are working on something that needs your attention, it is fine to say something like "Oh, excuse me, Ann, but I just need to concentrate on this for a few minutes and we can talk again afterwards."
- if you need a few minutes break, just say so. "I'm sorry, but I'd like a few minutes of quiet. I'm not used to talking so long at a stretch. Would you like a magazine?"

As long as you do not constantly blow her off, and you engage her and talk with her between spells, you won't be sending the signal that you don't want to talk to her. But you can buy yourself some periods of quiet politely.

What is a "family of talkers"? How can the whole group not know that they are weird and annoying? Don't people call them on this and tell them to STFU?

ha ha PP, your comment made me laugh. Consider yourself lucky: you've obviously never been in the middle of a family of talkers, like mine. I ask myself how they can not see how weird they are but they don't, they honestly don't see it. They don't really have friends because they're all so socially awkward, so there's no outside perspective. But a lot of us, if not most, score much lower on the self-awareness scale than we'd like to think - I'm sure we all have our blind spots when it comes to ourselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coming from an entire family of talkers (including myself), a few tips on how to tone it down (you will find it hard to eliminate completely)

- periodically excuse yourself to do something in another room. If she moves to follow, just discourage her "No, no...you just sit here and enjoy your coffee. I'll be back in a few minutes."
- when you are working on something that needs your attention, it is fine to say something like "Oh, excuse me, Ann, but I just need to concentrate on this for a few minutes and we can talk again afterwards."
- if you need a few minutes break, just say so. "I'm sorry, but I'd like a few minutes of quiet. I'm not used to talking so long at a stretch. Would you like a magazine?"

As long as you do not constantly blow her off, and you engage her and talk with her between spells, you won't be sending the signal that you don't want to talk to her. But you can buy yourself some periods of quiet politely.

What is a "family of talkers"? How can the whole group not know that they are weird and annoying? Don't people call them on this and tell them to STFU?

ha ha PP, your comment made me laugh. Consider yourself lucky: you've obviously never been in the middle of a family of talkers, like mine. I ask myself how they can not see how weird they are but they don't, they honestly don't see it. They don't really have friends because they're all so socially awkward, so there's no outside perspective. But a lot of us, if not most, score much lower on the self-awareness scale than we'd like to think - I'm sure we all have our blind spots when it comes to ourselves.

Yes, but since you realize you are a "talker", you don't have any excuse.