29. Interrupting
We all know the feeling: You’re trying to get your point across to a friend or colleague when, out of nowhere, they cut you off to start making a point of their own. Yes, gender does seem to come into play in terms of who’s on the receiving end of the interrupting—one Stanford University study revealed that, out of 48 interruptions in a conversation between male and female participants, 46 were a man interrupting a woman. But no matter the perpetrator, there’s no denying it’s a serious etiquette faux pas.
“People listen to respond, they don’t listen to hear. People are just excited and they want to get their point across, and they don’t realize that it’s rude, but it is,” says Thomas. “They should really stop and listen when the other person is speaking, take a moment to digest what they’ve said, and wait to respond instead of interrupting.” And when you want to clean up your act, cut out the 40 Things No Man Over 40 Should Ever Say.
