Let them tell you the story you have already heard
Do not say you know. Let them get to the end of it the way they like telling it.
The BeingKind editorsPublished How this is written
Why it lands
Interrupting a story with "you've told me this" is a small correction that costs more than it looks like it does. The pleasure of telling a story is mostly in the telling, and the person is not trying to inform you — they are enjoying something with you present. Being cut off teaches them, over years, to stop starting. Plenty of people stop telling their stories at home long before they run out of them, and nobody decides it, it just accumulates.
How
When you recognize the opening, let it run. Ask a question you already know the answer to. This is easier if you treat it as watching somebody enjoy something rather than receiving information, because the second framing makes it unbearable and the first one does not.
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