Can We Trust People Who Can't Stop Talking?

We all know people who can’t stop talking. It’s as if they were the “silence police”, making sure that silence doesn’t last long whenever it happens. If you’re with them in the car, it’s like putting on the radio. In no time at all you’re up to date with everything that’s happened in your circle of friends, in the latest television news and with social and world events.

You, on the other hand, feel that there are many roads you shouldn’t go down just so you don’t put your foot in it. And yet these chatterboxes feel comfortable talking about any topic imaginable. In addition, they live out what they’re telling you – they are so masterful with their inflections of voice that they can out-perform any lively professional speaker.

People we can’t trust to keep a secret

You’re well aware these people are the best loudspeakers you could wish for if you were wanting information to spread quickly. They don’t usually have bad intentions. The problem is that they have the annoying tendency to think after speaking. We can probably remember times with people like this when we just wanted the ground to open up and swallow us, and when we’ve thought “for goodness sake don’t say it, don’t say it!“. In those moments you may have tried to give them a nudge or a subtle kick under the table, but the outcome is usually decided and can’t be changed.
Amongst these people who can’t stop talking we can differentiate those we can put up with with a little patience, and even sometimes enjoy, from those who are totally unbearable. The unbearable chatterboxes are usually characterized by their projection of a negative selfishness. This is revealed by the criticism and pessimism that predominate in their speech, pessimism both for his or her future and for that of others. They are the perfect prophets of doom.

What are people who can’t stop talking really like?

They can be so shallow and fond of subjects of such little importance that their quickness of words produces more fatigue than intensive exercise does. On the positive side, with practice you can slowly get used to the person who talks all the time. Just like the noise of a disco: at first it seems very loud to you, then you start to get used to it, and when you come out you realize the full intensity of sound that you have been putting up with: your ears buzz, most probably thanking you for getting out of the noise.

There are many traits that characterize them. One of the most prominent is that they don’t know how to listen. When they finish talking they start thinking about the next thing they’re going to say, and they say it regardless of what you were planning to say. They are going down a certain road, and that’s where they intend to go, no matter how much you try and throw them off track. In addition, they’re afraid of forgetting what they have just thought of, or losing the thread of what they were saying, and so, if you go on a bit longer than they want you to, then they will have no qualms about cutting you off.

On the other hand, this linguistic outpouring also often works as a defense mechanism. The person doesn’t want the conversation to head towards issues that he’d prefer not to talk about. He will then direct the conversation to try and divert the thoughts of the other speakers towards more superficial issues, such as what so and so has or hasn’t done.
Although we do not belong to this group of people who will talk till they’re blue in the face, we have all used this defense mechanism at least once before, with varying degrees of success. In fact, we started doing it from a young age because it can be a good strategy that can at any moment avoid a good telling off.

Whatever the case, the person who talks a lot is so connected to their own self – either to talk about themselves or to divert attention somewhere else – that they don’t usually have too much of a capacity to listen to other people. For this reason, it’s usually difficult for them to be empathetic or to establish deep relationships with others. It is paradoxical because they just don’t understand why it’s so difficult for them to connect with others when the image they have of themselves is that of someone sociable.