Have you ever had a conversation with someone and felt really uncomfortable? Not because of what the person was saying, but because of how they were saying it to you? I’ve come to realize recently that I am a magnet for people with awkward conversation styles.

I can’t erase the memory of conversations past, but I hope that by writing this post I can put those of you that I have yet to meet on notice, thereby avoiding future awkwardness. If you fall into one of the three categories below, do both of us a favor and don’t talk to me:

1.) The Chatty Pee-er

I don’t know about you but when I go into the bathroom at work, I go in there for one reason and one reason only. What reason might that be? I’ll give you a hint, its not to talk to you.

When I’m standing at the urinal dancing with Little Jimmy, please don’t talk to me. Don’t look over at me, don’t attempt to shake my hand and for the love of god, don’t ask me if I’m “workin’ hard or hardly workin’.” I swear, all of the above have happened to me at least one time in the last year.

I’ve also been told by someone who I happened to see in the bathroom more than two times in the same day: “We’ve got to stop meetin’ like this. People are gonna start talkin’.” Huh? We must know very different people. The people who I know don’t watch the bathroom door all day to see who goes in and out, let alone think disturbing thoughts about what they do while inside.

I have also noticed what could be an evolution of the chatty pee-er. I was at the urinal today and a man next to me was clicking away at his Blackberry. While I admire his dexterity, I can’t help but feel that he could’ve waited two minutes. I guess I shouldn’t complain. He could have used that hand to try to give me a high five or a noogie.

The men’s room to me is not a place to go to socialize or discuss world affairs. The men’s room to me is like prison: you go in, you don’t make eye contact with anyone, you don’t stay one second longer than you have to and then you leave.

2.) The Drill Sergeants

One of the things I really love about Americans is that for the most part we are very good about respecting personal space. Most of us have a certain invisible territory around us that we know it’s not cool to invade. Unfortunately, some people haven’t quite picked up on the way we do business here in America.

There are a certain group of people that feel the need to get right up in my grill when talking to me. Almost nose to nose, like they’re coming in for a big sloppy one. It wouldn’t be half bad if attractive people did this to me, but it’s always the people who I couldn’t find less appealing.

I know of a woman in particular who is a major offender. Every time she sees me and wants to engage me in conversation, I find myself behaving like a whipped dog — instinctively slinking backward. Smelling blood, she’ll come in for the kill, getting right up on me like a Parris Island drill instructor with vinegar breath; barking at me about the latest minutiae in her work life. Believe me, everything she says could have been said a few inches further away, or (since she decided to gargle with vinegar that morning) from the other side of the room.

If you feel like you must extend your sphere of influence and wander into my no fly zone, then please don’t talk to me.

3.) The Finishers

Is it too much to ask to be able to finish my own sentence? Apparently it is, since I seem to keep running into people that fall into this third category. Two of whom I actually worked with day to day.

The Finisher is hard-wired by evolution (or in the perfect image of the deity of your choice) to try to finish my sentences. They haven’t been programmed to finish them correctly, but they can’t stop themselves from giving it the old college try.

If you don’t know what I mean, I’ll give you an example:

Jim: “If you want to send an email, you will want to click this button that says…”
Person who shouldn’t be talking to me: “Delete”

As my example shows, The Finisher will insist on trying to complete the sentence that I started. I haven’t done any scientific testing on this but I would estimate that 99% of the time, The Finisher will guess the wrong ending to my sentence.

I don’t necessarily love surprises, but I won’t go out of my way to spoil something. If I miss the second half of a Lost season on television and have to wait for the DVD, I’ll try to avoid what happens in the finale until I can see it. To a much smaller degree, when I’m having a conversation with someone, I’ll try to let them finish their own sentence without spoiling it. Since I don’t know what they’re going to say, (and it’s freaking rude to do otherwise) I’ll let myself be surprised. I could always try to finish the season of Lost that I missed, but I’ll leave that to the professionals.

So there they are, the three top conversation offenders. I’m not naïve enough to think that I can actually get these people to stop talking to me, or that I could go through life without running into them. But I’m hoping that maybe one person at a time we can fight conversational discomfort. And if I can get a couple less annoying people to keep yammering at me, then its a big bonus.

Jim

Read more posts by Jim at HoagiesWithMyles.com