Elbows and knees.
(about a 2 minute read)
When I watched the news, every year on Boxing Day I would see thousands of people lining up ready for the doors to open on the Boxing Day Sales. Queues of people would form outside shops just waiting for the moment the doors would be swung open, and they could get their hands on some heavily reduced product. An interviewer would go up and down the queue and talk to the people, some had camped out overnight, madness in my view. A new TV, a new fridge, a new dream of happiness! It was a frenzy, where people would hold up their prize in glee. Once the door opened people would fling themselves forward, using elbows and knees to get in front, a wild, crazed look in their eyes.
We have all been in conversations, where people try to verbally elbow and knee their way in. When you are trying to finish off your sentences and people are ready to fling themselves into your what you are saying, mouth open, already trying to butt in. Their prize is not a new TV or fridge but the right to get their voice across, their opinion. They have stopped listening to what you are saying and are just poised to elbow themselves in.
If you are somebody like me who usually verbalises, talks out loud, to work out my thoughts, then it is beyond annoying. What I am saying is often my thoughts being linked together verbally. Many people work in a different way, my brain tends to work by me opening my mouth. So, what happens when a bargain hunter flings themselves into my conversation. Well, I will quite often ask people to allow me to finish or I will quietly put my hand on their shoulder and smile. Then they might realise I would like to carry on, if they don’t, I will ask them to allow me to finish. This way I get to finish off what I had to say, because they are not listening.
It happens so often, people think they have the answer to what you are saying, before you have got to the end. Or they are just so eager to get their voice heard. When it has all got too much and verbal elbows and knees have just not stopped, it has been time to walk away. They are just not listening to you!
