Broadcasters

I’ve reached the end of my rope with a certain personality type: the broadcasters. These are the people that talk and talk and need minimal interaction or connection with their listeners. Because God hates me, I’ve had a lot of interactions with Broadcasters recently and have decided that I need to either wear noise-cancelling headphones around all day or make some life changes to cut these personality types out completely. To avoid looking autistic, I’m opting for the latter.

If you have any of these qualities, I don’t want to be friends:

You’re a bad listener
Everyone thinks that they are a good listener. Just like everyone thinks they’re a good driver and have a good sense of humor (I don’t know how many times I’ve heard “I have a really dry sense of humor, not everyone gets it”). But the fact is that being a good listener is a rare and valuable quality. Broadcasters are terrible listeners. They talk talk talk and when they throw in the occasional “So tell me about you,” it’s really just a courtesy and their eyes glaze over almost immediately. Then, at the first opportunity, they turn the conversation back to themselves with some really poor segue: “Oh, your trip to Africa reminds of how I took a trip to LA last week. Let me tell you all about it.”

You lack an inner monologue
Broadcasters have no inner monologue, no filter. Everything running through their minds is verbally vomited on to the nearest passerby. Their conversation is scattered and will jump from topic to topic without finishing a thought, plus it’s usually boring. Broadcasters don’t trouble themselves by screening thoughts to find the things that a companion might find interesting. Nope, you get a full rundown on everything from their new gluten-free diet to their dog's bowel movements to Glee plotlines.

You have no sense of time
A person should never talk for multiple hours. Even one hour is pushing it. I’m not referring to back-and-forth dialogue…this is pure uninterrupted soliloquy. Stop it.

Your issues are always "same same but different" 
Broadcasters are invariably the people that always have drama in their lives. Not real drama, like a serious illness or family problem, but the kind that finds someone when they don't have their shit together. So you’re forced to listen to hours and hours of problems that you’ve heard about for years. Same issues with money, love life, work, etc. It wouldn’t be so bad if they would take some advice and make some changes, but they aren’t looking to fix things, they just want someone to listen to them talk about it. Over and over.

You don’t reciprocate
One of my sister’s biggest pet peeves is when you’re talking to someone and they don’t ask about your life. If you ever want to piss Erin off, repeatedly forget her name and don't ask her about herself. I’m a pretty private person, so I don’t necessarily want people knowing my business, but I have to admit that she’s got a point. It’s incredibly annoying when someone just talks at you, relating what they consider to be important, then waves bye-bye. Like, “thanks for letting me unload, aren’t you impressed with me.” I’m okay with people who talk a lot, as long as they show a genuine interest in your life and give you at least a few minutes of airtime. There’s got to be a little bit of reciprocity.

Since the silent treatment obviously won’t work with this group, I’m hoping that I can use this personality checklist to avoid the Broadcasters of the world and save my sanity. As my Goonies “Talking Chunk” keychain would say, “I’ve taken all I can stand, and I can’t stand no more.”