Dear Social Grace,
I have a friend who is wonderful in most ways. But she has one serious flaw: an absolute lack of awareness of how (un)interesting her day to day life is, and she yammers on about it endlessly. If her voice were a bit more soothing I could seriously fall asleep while she drones on.
She has a near constant need to inform me in great detail what she is doing--and trust me, her life is not that fascinating. I get a lengthy litany of her daily errands, her kids' homework assignments, her parents' ailments, the tedium of her job, her workout routines and her household chores. Aside from that she is a really good friend. She's thoughtful, generous, kind, considerate, helpful, supportive and in many instances, fun to be with. But this saturation is, well, saturating me. Help!
Dear Saturated,
I empathize. I really do. No one wants to function as a one-Grace stream of consciousness twitterfeed dump. I freely admit that this would drive me nuts. But go back to your statement for a moment: "She is a really good friend..thoughtful, generous, kind, etc." Let's face it, nobody's perfect, and in most ways, she sounds pretty great. Friends like that don't sashay up the runway every day. That said, it doesn't mean that you have to become a repository for her minutiae. Take tactful, and ideally undetectable steps to combat the scourge.
Here are a few ideas:
1. Only accept her calls when you have limited time so there is an end in sight. Say, "Hi Anita, I have a few minutes to chat, I"m on my way to [open heart surgery/the Cannes Film Festival/the supermarket] but we can catch up until I get there." Blah, blah, blah, making meatballs for dinner, blah, blah, just ran my stockings, my boss is wearing a hideous tie, blah, blah, blah. "Ok, Anita, I've arrived here, so I'll have to talk to you later."
2. Call her when you have enforced "dead time". During your commute, say--assuming you have a hands-free device in your car. When you are waiting for the cable guy. While folding laundry--but don't, no matter how tempted you are, give a running narrative of the darks and lights as she might do to you. There's nothing Gracious about spite, and more importantly, Graces are good conversationalists and there is no standard by which laundry talk could be classified thus.
3. Return her calls with a text. "Can't talk now, but can text. What's up?" It's unlikely she'll regale you with details of junior's times tables if she has to let her fingers do the talking.
Hope these help.
SG
I know the question wasn't exactly about cell phone rudeness, but I love these "cell phone karma" ads. Enjoy...
