Dear Queenie,
There is one person in a group of us that get together every so often who can’t keep their mouth shut, and most of their talking is bragging about themself and not very interesting to the rest of us.
We can’t just leave this person out because it is the spouse of one of our best friends, but it is really too much.
Queenie, how do you get someone like that to shut up?—Fed up
Dear Fed up,
I cannot think of a gentle or polite way to shut a blabbermouth up.
You could ask the person’s “better half” to have a talk with him (or her) and ask her/him to limit the babble so others have a chance to talk.
Or you could appoint a “moderator” at your get-togethers and the moderator could quietly set a time limit on any one person’s turn to hold the floor. When the time is up, the moderator interrupts if necessary and tells the speaker it is now someone else’s turn. And if someone interrupts a speaker, the moderator tells the interrupter to wait his/her turn to speak. But this is a rather formal way to handle what is probably an informal gathering.
