blog entry

When to shut your pie-hole

Starting a blog about how to be a Cool Broad has finally come back to bite me in the arse. This weekend my husband and I were in the car and I was just a yammerin’ away about, well, I don’t know…probably me, or my feelings, or what happened to me the past week (you get the picture), when he turned to me and said, “Cool Broads know when to stop talking about themselves.” Ouch.

Once my ego began to heal, I got to thinking...what he said was absolutely rule-worthy: Cool Broads DO know when to stop talking about themselves. I went a little further in developing this rule to include: Cool Broads know when to stop talking period. They’re related concepts, but different nonetheless, and both are equally important.

Knowing when to stop talking is really about being perceptive. Picking up the cues, both verbal and nonverbal, that your listeners are giving you is incredibly important. When you're speaking, do people appear fidgety? Do they keep trying to change the subject? Are they dropping like flies? If so, chances are you're talking too much.

Me, Myself and I

Some people are just naturally self-centered; they are the most interesting person they know and are happy to share all-things-them with everyone else. They never learned how to carry on a normal conversation with someone (i.e. one that’s not about them) and typically find that they don’t receive that many invitations or get too many phone calls. A good friend or family member may even have told them at some point that they talk about themselves too much.

If this sounds familiar, don’t worry, it’s not hopeless (you can open the garage door). In most cases, this problem can be remedied by simply becoming interested in others…really interested. In other words, faking it probably won’t work.

Read this article, “How to stop talking about yourself.” It’s a great a step-by-step guide on how to improve your conversation skills and help you become the kind of person that other people want to be around.

Diarrhea of the Mouth

When someone just can’t just stop talking, they’ve got diarrhea of the mouth. It doesn’t necessarily have to be about themselves: it can be a long-winded tale about their friend’s cousin who went on sabbatical last month and came back and all her plants were dead or it can be a lengthy review of a restaurant they went to in Italy that you’ll never go to and therefore would have no interest in. For some people it’s nervous chatter, for others it’s just a lack of understanding about what others will find interesting which, in other words, is being a bore. Read this article, “Note to self: Avoid being a bore” from Real Simple Magazine and discover what others find boring.

*Rantings*
Diarrhea of the mouth can also be about not knowing when to end a rant. Cool Broads avoid being negative…it’s unattractive…and negative things are on the list of things NOT to talk about at a cocktail party.

For instance, if you hate sushi, and someone is serving sushi at a party, you can just say, “No, thank you.” If someone asks, “Don’t you like sushi?", you can respond, “It’s not really my cup of tea.” A twenty two-minute rant about how you think that eating sushi is like licking the deck of a rat-infested fishing boat filled with decaying fish is saying too much. Your rant may begin to irritate people who like sushi (that’s what it means when someone rolls their eyes at you) and worse, you may have offended the fellow at the party who’s a sushi chef (or captains a rat-infested fishing boat).

*Please believe me*
Diarrhea of the mouth can also occur when someone is trying too hard to make a rationalization, or save face. A couple of hours into a bunco party I attended last spring, the hostess’ husband came downstairs, pitched a fit about the noise and demanded that everyone go home. The embarrassed hostess apologized and explained that her husband was under a lot of pressure at work. She then added that he had a very stressful job, more stressful than any of our husband’s jobs, so it really wasn't his fault. She should’ve stopped talking back at the apology.

In both cases, the “stop talking” filter malfunctioned. Generally speaking, it’s most effective to be succinct when making a point, so don't belabor the issue. Also, before speaking, internally assess how others may feel about the statement you’re about to make. And again, cues are there for the taking. If your listeners yawn, look around the room for an escape, or half jokingly say, “enough about how much you hate sushi”, chances are they’re not tired, the house isn’t on fire, and they’re not joking. Take the cues you’re given and gracefully move on.

I should probably stop talking now.