Check out this great essay on the problem with bores by Mark Edmundson, a professor at the University of Virginia. Here’s an excerpt.
What is it with bores? I mean the sort of people who always have to hold the floor. They talk constantly at you, hurling their words like spears, each one tiny enough but nearly deadly in their collective effect. Almost all bores seem to have been born with, or to have developed, an amazing capacity: they can talk and take in air at the same time, so there’s never a moment to drop in your own two cents. On they go. They take no interest in you or anything about you; at best, you’re a stage prop in the one-person drama that they compose, produce, and star in. These are the people who like to proclaim that they are about to make a long story short, when what they usually do is make no story at all interminable. They’re the people who clear their throats, look you in the eye, and, with great finality, say, “My point is . . . ,†then proceed to ramble on with no point whatever in sight. They’re the people whose idea of human interaction seems to be turning up the volume on the monologue that’s always going on in their heads.
