Why do some people have to talk all the damn time?

So I need my late afternoon pick me up and I go across the street for a cup of coffee. It's a brew one cup at a time place, so I have to wait a little while in the store. I'm the only person there. The guy brewing my cup asks me what I do, so I answer him in four words. He asks me another question. I answer briefly. This exchange goes on for a couple more Q&As. Will this guy get the hint? I clearly am not interested in mindless small talk. Just make my cup of coffee and let me get back to work.

Maybe I'm a dick, but I clearly wasn't too interested in having conversation. Is it too much to ask that if things are silent to just let them be that way?

So, IF you are a dick for that, so am I. I despise total strangers trying to shoot the shit with me when it's none of their damn business. It causes me to start giving them "that look." You know. That one-----> :mad:

Goes both ways...

I don't want to be forced into conversation.

But I guess my bigger annoyance is that I was clearly giving off all the hints of disinterest. Not making eye contact, short answers, etc. I just want people to pick up the hints.

some people are less than observant. Or maybe he was just on auto-pilot and not even listening to your responses. Either way it wasn't exactly un-dickish of him to continue with the chit chat if you were giving the 'not interested, thanks' signals.

I'd have just stopped answering and pretended not to hear him... maybe acted distracted by something outside or in a paper or something.

He asked me what I do, what the purpose of the non-profit is. He asked follow up questions. He wanted to shoot the breeze and I wanted to get my coffee and go.

I tried to ride the fine line between being polite to someone who was just trying to be nice and wanting to blow him off.

But he did kinda piss me off by calling into question the mission of my organization. It made me decide to not drop my change in his tip jar.

At first I thought he was being nice... but the fact that you gave the 'not interested' signals, and that he was rude... I wonder if he was just bored. Ah whatever... you're paying too much for coffee anyway.

I want a smoothie.

Some people go there everyday for coffee. My internal cheapskate alarm is buzzing thinking that's 11.25 a week. Usually the Kirkland Signature junk we get in the office will suffice.

How's it been going, BTW? I haven't been as up on Arsenal as I would have liked this year. The campaign really got me behind schedule and by the time it was over I felt like I missed too much of the season to get back into it.

I was thinking of Starbucks prices.

It's been going... so there's that. Thanks for asking... and how's things with you?

Arsenal was really worrying me... they were fighting for a spot in the top four for a while but that seems to be over now with Villa falling apart in such spectacular fashion. It really was nervy though, even the possibility that they might not get a spot in the CL next year. Things are rather exciting now with Liverpool threatening Utd's claim on the title. They looked unstoppable a month ago but now it's close again. I'd still rather anyone else but those two teams won though...

I can't stand Chelsea, but have always had something for Liverpool. Probably my inner Beatlemaniac.

It's so nosiy where I work it's a wonder I can get through the day. It's a pleasure to be at home without the tv or stereo on sometimes with just my window open listening to the wind and birds. I had to tell a roomate to leave because she talked too much...yak, yak, yak. And it was always about "her". I tend to glaze over when people talk too much...like preachers and lecturers. Not many people have the power to have me spellbound.

Traffic can be slow for coffee shops in the late afternoon.

you were just tired and cranky. You said you needed a "pick-me-up." A guy trying to make conversation on a nice afternoon is hardly something to get you upset. There are worse things. And, yes, I know it can be annoying, but if you just open your heart a little tiny bit and make room for a guy who's working in a tiny shop, maybe you won't get agida about it and simply see it as a case of one human being attempting to connect, on the most basic of levels, with another.

You're not a dick.

I'm just busy right now and I need to spend my goof off time wisely, hence DU and not coffee chit chat.

behind the counter has a surprisingly hard job to do. He has to make you feel like a human by simulating genuine human contact, and stay pretty much invisible at the same time. It's a lot harder than it looks. He was probably just having an off day and misread you. Try not to hold it against him.