Dreaded Loquacious Roommate: Avoid at All Costs

[gravenewworld]

Are quite annoying. I try to avoid my new roommate like the plague because if he sees you you are almost accosted by his non-stop talking. If he ends up catching you, the conversations at a minimum will end up lasting over half an hour to 45 minutes. I'm a friendly guy, but sometimes I don't feel like talking for that long, especially when I have to get to doing work right away. I'm dreading getting up and going out of my room right now because he is in the kitchen. I just want to get up, grab something real quick in the kitchen to drink, and head out. I know if he is in there I'll end up having to have coffee with him and talk for the next 75 minutes, with him doing the 95% of the talking. I can't stand loquacious people; it's almost impossible to walk away from them without feeling like you are being rude or weird. It's a non-stop verbal assault.

 

[Borg]

When he starts talking and you don't have the time, tell him right away that you only have a minute and you need to get back to what you were doing. It works surprisingly well.

 

[ArcanaNoir]

try walking around with headphones on and bob your head a little. That might reduce the number of interactions. Or when you walk through the kitchen pretend to be talking on your phone. Or claim your mom/friend/professor is having a chat with you over the computer and you left them hanging to get a snack. Or set you cell phone alarm to go off in five or ten minutes. Then, when he's talking, and the phone goes off, say oh crap! I'm late for (whatever, maybe even a live class session over the internet if you want to stay home) and dash out.

 

[gravenewworld]

Damnit. Too late. He saw me turn the light on in my room by looking under the door. He already knows now that I'm up and is talking to me through the door.


I just want to get to anatomy lab and review my cadaver. That's why I like dead people, they don't talk.

 

[lisab]

Are quite annoying. I try to avoid my new roommate like the plague because if he sees you you are almost accosted by his non-stop talking. If he ends up catching you, the conversations at a minimum will end up lasting over half an hour to 45 minutes. I'm a friendly guy, but sometimes I don't feel like talking for that long, especially when I have to get to doing work right away. I'm dreading getting up and going out of my room right now because he is in the kitchen. I just want to get up, grab something real quick in the kitchen to drink, and head out. I know if he is in there I'll end up having to have coffee with him and talk for the next 75 minutes, with him doing the 95% of the talking. I can't stand loquacious people; it's almost impossible to walk away from them without feeling like you are being rude or weird. It's a non-stop verbal assault.

I sympathize. Some extroverts have no idea how much they exhaust us introverts.

 

[arildno]

VLPs are disgusting.

 

[rootX]

I noticed generally VLPs get scared of me and learn to get to business when they see me

 

[Willowz]

When he starts talking and you don't have the time, tell him right away that you only have a minute and you need to get back to what you were doing. It works surprisingly well.

Hahahah. I'd love to be with such people. I need to stop thinking in terms of unifying grand one liners.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I've learned to not mind being rude to rude people. When I was taking the bus I used to have people try talking to me fairly frequently. I always brought a book and liked to read on the bus. Basically they were interrupting my reading and I thought that was rather rude. So I would acknowledge their existence so as not to be entirely rude and then go back to my book and ignore them if they kept talking.

So my advice is to just tell your roomie that he talks too much and you would prefer to be left alone most of the time, preferably in a more diplomatic fashion than that though. Maybe its rude but at least that way you are being honest and don't have to expend energy coming up with ingenious ways of avoiding speaking to him.

 

[AlephZero]

I woulnd't bother about trying to be "poilte" here.

Get yourself a cheap squeaky pet toy. When he starts talking to you, start playing with it.

Either he'll figure out the message, or he'll get bored talking to himself. Either way, you win.

But if he also buys a squeaky toy, your best option is probably to move to some place else!

 

[Proton Soup]

i used to know a guy like this that also did not understand personal space. he'd get right up in your face, and if you turned away from him, he'd reposition and carry on. add to this halitosis and it becomes a wee bit unbearable.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

my new roommate

You need to set firm and clear boundaries now. If you have something to do, you don't have time to talk. It's that simple. There is nothing rude about making this clear.

Also, it sounds like he wants a new best friend, not just a roommate.

 

[arildno]

One of the great things about USA, is the..death penalty.

This opens up a space (or chair??) where we can shove down the most annoying people in the world, and since VLPs amply prove their crimes whenever they open their mouths (or rather, with never shutting it, even when afflicted with halitosis), there is absolutely no danger of wrongful conviction with sentencing them to their proper punishment.

 

[zoobyshoe]

You need to set firm and clear boundaries now. If you have something to do, you don't have time to talk. It's that simple. There is nothing rude about making this clear.

There is a character who hangs out at a cafe I frequent who torments polite people for hours simply because they don't have the guts to tell him they're busy. He specializes in sitting at group tables where students are studying, with his laptop, as if he's about to go online, but then he starts talking to the person next to him and doesn't shut up. It's frightening that he would do this, but maybe a little more frightening that the victim can't simply say "OK, I need to end this conversation and get to work now." I've seen him do it over and over to dozens of people. MOST people, for some odd reason, think it's impolite to cut someone off, even when they have something much more important to do.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

There is a character who hangs out at a cafe I frequent who torments polite people for hours simply because they don't have the guts to tell him they're busy. He specializes in sitting at group tables where students are studying, with his laptop, as if he's about to go online, but then he starts talking to the person next to him and doesn't shut up. It's frightening that he would do this, but maybe a little more frightening that the victim can't simply say "OK, I need to end this conversation and get to work now." I've seen him do it over and over to dozens of people. MOST people, for some odd reason, think it's impolite to cut someone off, even when they have something much more important to do.

My mother could talk the stripes off of a zebra. So can my uncle. We all can be talkers but they take the grand prizes. It can be especially difficult to deal with when it's a family member. You don't want to hurt their feelings, but at some point you have to draw the line.

When my uncle calls, he'll talk for an hour and a half if I let him. But as soon as I say anything about me and my life, he has to go. My mother can be almost as bad.

 

[zoobyshoe]

My mother could talk the stripes off of a zebra. So can my uncle. We all can be talkers but they take the grand prizes. It can be especially difficult to deal with when it's a family member. You don't want to hurt their feelings, but at some point you have to draw the line.

When my uncle calls, he'll talk for an hour and a half if I let him. But as soon as I say anything about me and my life, he has to go. My mother can be almost as bad.

Definitely might be difficult with a parent or older relative, but when it's not you really have to draw the line. Otherwise you're just getting used. 6 times out of 10 the person doing it either has Asperger's or is Bipolar, and they're never, ever, ever going to stop and consider they might be boring you or keeping you from something you'd rather be doing. You're politeness is lost on them in that they'll never reciprocate. They have to be cut off.

 

[SamirS]

VLPs are annoying, but people who can't say what they think or talk about the problem they have with the person they have it with but moan about the situation they can't stand up to to others are even worse.

If you make the boundaries clear to this person and he/she doesn't take it well, then it's best this happened before there were any real ties.

 

[SamirS]

VLPs are annoying, but people who can't say what they think or talk about the problem they have with the person they have it with but moan about the situation they can't stand up to to others are even worse.

If you make the boundaries clear to this person and he/she doesn't take it well, then it's best this happened before there were any real ties.

 

[S_Happens]

I'm an extrovert, but even I can be worn out by some serious VLPs. Where I used to work, if I was inside I was confined to a single location for 12 hours. Unfortunately, we shared a large room with a MINIMUM of 5 other people. There were a few impressive VLPs, and even if you weren't under direct fire, you had no choice but to overhear everything that was going on.

I think it's much worse to be a victim of second hand loquaciousness than suffer it directly. It was easy to just walk away when under direct attack, as they weren't offended in the least.

Sometimes I resorted to loud alternative music as all the offenders (and coworkers in general) were 40+, although I only used it sparingly.

 

[DoggerDan]

I dated one once as I found her conversation very interesting. But, like candy, too much is still too much, and she couldn't turn it off.