DEAR MISS MANNERS: When I speak to people by phone, they talk over me and interrupt me. I feel like it is a one-sided discussion.
With one friend, I had to send her a five-page letter to let her know how she had upset me by discussing a sensitive and charged family situation.
GENTLE READER: Until you mentioned the five-page letter, Miss Manners was totally sympathetic. Whether your friend was pontificating about your family problems or talking nonstop about her own, doing all the talking kills a conversation.
But your taking five pages to say that does plant the idea that perhaps you are not entirely guiltless. And it isn’t just that one person who interrupts, but apparently everyone.
Is it possible that they are the ones who would never get to talk unless they interrupted you? If not, Miss Manners apologizes and suggests that you learn to say, “Let me just finish, please, and then I’d like to hear what you think.”
(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)