Perma-Powwow

Perma-Powwow: the conversation that never ends. You think it is over, so you walk away and the person you are talking to will not let it end. You can hear his/her voice trail behind you hoping to reignite the conversation flame with a fast flurry of words before it dies out.

This happens to me all the time when I am talking to someone in particular. I grudgingly approach this person out of obligation or an unfortunate, but chance encounter. We start talking and our dialogue goes through the normal ebbs and flows, and then comes to what I perceive as an end. So, I make a move to not only end the conversation verbally, but I take physical steps to signify its closure by leaving the room or "conversation zone." As I walk away, I can hear a voice hanging onto my footsteps, and it feels like this strained voice has roped me in and drug me back into the conversation by a mysterious force. The situation immediately becomes awkward and I think to myself, is she really still talking to me?! Should I go back and continue to save face or has it been long enough?

As fate would have it, these conversations usually occur with socially starved individuals or people that are nice to talk to for a few minutes, only. In any case, you politely endure their banter out almost out of pity. It seems to you that for each minute you listen to their monotonous and repetitive dialogue that somehow you are garnering "karmic" points by altruistically lending an ear to the poor soul. After the conservation is finally over, you give yourself a mental pat on the back for narrowly escaping that never-ending exchange so discretely.

In fact, I have realized that I have unconsciously come up with tactics for putting an end to perma-powows. Once I feel that I am verbally roped in, I quickly devise a cunning escape. But it is like warfare of the mind, you want to leave, but you don't want them to know you want to stop talking.