Double Talkers & Interrupters

"How are you doing today?" This was how each day started that semester. She would ask me that question every day. This is not a hard question to respond to. Yet somehow every day when she asked me that question, I just couldn't reply. I knew the answer, but I just couldn't look at her and respond.

This bothered me to no end. I would obsess with the fact that I could never answer her. I mean, I'm in college! That alone should suggest that I have the capacity to reply to this cheerful person's query.

Then after about two weeks of this, I realized why I couldn't answer. One day before I entered the class, I watched her interaction with other classmates, and it was while watching those brief exchanges that I saw the problem. She was a double talker and an interrupter.

A double talker is someone who asks or says something, only to answer their own question or follow up with a question a few seconds later. And an interrupter is pretty self explaining.

Now one of these curses would be enough by itself, but this girl did them both. For example, on a Monday, she asked me what I thought about her new hair-cut, only to immediately follow that question with the statement “Oh I really don’t care what you think: then less than two seconds later she says “Yes I do, so tell me.” I couldn't answer her because she gave me no chance to say anything! I could now see in my head every single morning from the past two weeks, where during our chats, she would be launching herself into ditzy blonde rants. Rants in which her sentences and thoughts all seemed to be one long babbling ramble.

I could then see why I couldn't answer, but also why I should never answer. Amongst all of her double talk and interruptions, she wasn't all there! The best example of her not being all there would be the morning she showed up in a “See Through” sleeping top, as opposed to a regular top with her jeans. While that’s not at all crazy for some, it was however crazy to me and the entire class. She was quite possibly the first college idiot I had ever met. I realized then that answering meant she would then look to me for a conversation, or worse yet, she may view me as a friend, or oh god! her best friend.

It was at that moment I also realized that she caused a drastic mood shift, and not a positive mood shift at that. She, for some unexplained reason, invoked a great deal of frustration and a small amount of rage. So I realized that if I answered at any time, I would have to pull off an amazing amount of acting and lying to keep from saying to her something vicious or just rude.

I tell this story for two reasons. One being that I hate people that double talk and interrupt. And two, everyone doesn't handle these types of people with the same tact and grace I would. So when you decide to ask two questions or start another thought during a brief interaction; remember to pause and wait for the others to have time to respond. Do this and you may just wind up with a few more friends.