In an earlier post, I mentioned a fellow I called the Alpha Bore.  Despite the promise to myself, I have been to dinner with him several more times.  And a few of those times, we dined together alone.  He has shattered all of my theories about him.  When dining alone with him, he is really quite good company.  There were companionable silences.  There was conversational back-and-forth.  The few stories he told were new, funny, interesting, and appropriate to the conversation.  So, I must come up with new theories to explain his behaviour with the larger audience.

The best initial theory I have developed is self-defense.  Did I mention the other fellow we are often out with is also a bore?  So, maybe he talks to preclude this other guy from carrying on?  He had worked with this fellow before, and they had eaten dinner together many times.  Maybe, the Alpha Bore had just heard the other fellow’s geek-out topics too many times and developed this strategy as a defensive ploy?  The only semi-hole in this theory is that he was also this way when it was a different third person.  Now, that person is pleasant enough.  Even when on geek-out subjects, it’s easy enough not to mind.   (Perhaps another post about that later?)  But perhaps the Alpha had also had enough of that person in previous assignments?  This is possible.  The only thing is that I know that I’d bore myself with such a strategy.  If the company talks too much, I’d rather ignore them than try to out-bore them.  Still, it could be an explanation for this fellow.

Another explanantion that I’ve tried to fit onto the fellow, is that maybe when we’re out with a larger group, the other members are responding with interest to his stories.  Maybe when we’re one-on-one, he picks up on strong cues from me to just-shut-up-and-eat-I-want-to-watch-people-not-hear-you-babble.  But it strains credulity that anyone could be responding with that much interest.  And I was watching the others to a certain extent.  I really didn’t notice anything that would bring on such a thorough cascade of words.

Another theory is that he likes to show off in a crowd.  After all, he isn’t bad when it’s just the two of us.  Maybe it’s larger groups where he feels the need to be dominant?  This theory might be workable to explain things, although maybe the word dominant is the key?

I did tag this fellow the Alpha Bore.  And maybe it really is an Alpha thing.  Could it be that he only feels the need to demonstrate conversational dominance if he’s challenged?  One on one, since I have no interest in conversational dominance, he may not feel the need to talk so much.  But when any of the others are about, he talks.  Admittedly, if he didn’t, either of the other two certainly would.  So, maybe this is actually his way of asserting himself as the Alpha?  This is about the best theory I now have, unless a mixed explanation is the reality.

Humans are complex enough creatures that it may well be a mixture of self-defense, alpha dominance, reading signals I’m not seeing since I’m not speaking, and sheer crowd-wowwing.  Whatever the true case, the Alpha Bore can be very decent company at dinner, so long as nobody else is there.