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My Dad has a strong tendency to talk in circles, slowly working to his point like one of those penny rolling machines you used to see everywhere, and it drives me round the bend sometimes to the point where I end up having to prompt him to just get to the point
Is he also ADHD/ASD? Sometimes having to tell the whole story is like an OCD trait, you can't just get to the point. The whole story has to be relayed because that's how it exists in your brain.
The flip side is just giving someone the punch line or answer to a situation and getting frustrated that people haven't reached the same conclusions as quickly as you have.
I dunno', I also find a lot of people in technical/detail driven fields will often circle their thoughts. Not that they meander stories around over superfluous detail, but they literally repeat and refine specific statements or messages multiple times, sometimes even verbally.
This can easily appear as, "talking in circles" when all they're doing is refining their statements for better accuracy. Sometimes, it's literally circling back to clarify points that might not matter outside of doing the thing when people might simply be curious.
I realize a lot of these are mental disorders when they're bad enough, but that's my point: Talking in circles can mean many things. Maybe they just often talk about nuanced topics that need circling back to fully discuss and OP doesn't like nuance.
Well, yes…that’s why I used conditional language “sometimes”. For some people this is normal to verbally rehash and refine an idea, and I’d think a prompt to get to the point would be successful and not problematic. For someone not neurotypical, this might create frustration or break up their ability to complete the story.
Like walking a path, but someone throws a branch across it. Now you’ve lost the path and maybe focus on that loss of direction, the branch, why is there a branch, did they really need to put the branch there, people are looking at me and I can’t deal with the branch…wait, I have to walk back down the path, pick it up, and try to find my way forward without this continuity I have in my head…
Indeed, following those stories that circle and break is quite annoying, especially when attention is scarce. Regardless of why the conversation is meandering. lol
Ironically, if they're good at story telling, the picture painting can even sometimes give enough on-topic targets to keep a wandering mind in the conversation. Though that's more of an ideal situation where the speaker isn't circling back randomly. ha
Higgly suspected ASD, but he's never been formally diagnosed for various reasons - and your first evaluation is more or less what I assume is going on in his head, as he also has the tendency to hyperfocus on things
My Mother is the first type, my Fiancee is the second. "Cobbler, stick to your last" as we say in Germany. Though I'm much better with asking questions than telling someone to get to the point.
My dad and my wife begin telling their anecdote and it finally involves me in having a mental and emotional breakdown trying to figure put their point.
I used to fight them initially into telling the point in the few seconds to no avail. These days, I just tune in enough to listen every 10th word.
Yes, those people