Why Do Some People Interrupt While Others Need to Finish Their Story?

When I thought we were connecting and you thought I stole the microphone

I have literally driven down the highway with water in my mouth so I wouldn’t interrupt Joe.

Not metaphorical water.

Actual water.

Joe talks on road trips. He can take the scenic route through a thought, and a few minutes in I can feel my contribution forming.

A perspective.

A connection.

A thought that will absolutely improve this conversation if everyone would just pause for my brilliance.

So I hold water in my mouth.

Because if I want to interrupt him, I have to swallow first.

Sometimes the water gets warm.

There I am, a grown woman doing seventy miles an hour with a mouthful of increasingly unpleasant water because apparently this is what personal growth looks like.

It taught me something.

Sometimes I think I’m joining a conversation when the other person experiences me as interrupting one.

And I know the other side too.

I can get the microphone and keep it.

Ask me a question that requires a three-sentence answer and there have absolutely been times when I delivered the director’s commentary, deleted scenes, and bonus footage.

So I don’t think this is about two kinds of people.

I think a lot of us learned different rules for conversation.

In some families, everybody jumps in.

You tell a story, I say, “That happened to me too,” you add something, I add something, and the overlap itself feels warm.

In another family, interrupting means:

You aren’t listening.

One person thinks:

We’re playing catch.

The other thinks:

I have the microphone.

Nobody announced the rules.

That’s where things get weird.

Someone can briefly interrupt with:

“That happened to me too! Sorry, keep going.”

Connection made.

Microphone returned.

Or someone can say:

“That happened to me too…”

and ten minutes later we are somehow discussing their former boss, their cousin’s divorce, and a Costco incident that occurred during the Obama administration.

Original story: missing, presumed dead.

But the storyteller has a failure mode too.

Sometimes the person holding the microphone has been talking so long that the listener has forgotten whether there was ever a question.

Every attempt to relate gets shut down with:

“Wait, I’m not finished.”

At some point you are no longer telling a story.

You are hosting a limited-series podcast your listener did not know they subscribed to.

I have occupied both positions.

Which is why I love one stupidly simple practice:

Return the microphone.

Turns out I didn’t really need warm water.

I needed about five extra seconds.

Enough time to notice that I wanted to jump in, say the connecting thing if it still mattered, and then hand the conversation back.

“That happened to me too. What happened next?”

And if I need to tell something from beginning to end, I can make that clear too:

“Can I tell you something? I mostly need you to listen for a few minutes.”

That tiny bit of information can prevent an enormous amount of character assassination.

Because suddenly:

You never listen

might become:

You thought we were playing catch and I thought I had the microphone.

And:

You never let anybody talk

might become:

You needed uninterrupted space and I didn’t know that was the deal.

Nobody needs a diagnosis.

Sometimes we just need to know what game we’re playing.

Then, if I borrow the microphone, I can remember to give the damn thing back.