“I’m talked out,” wrote television critic Tim Goodman. He made the statement halfway through a long article about why he no longer spends much time on Twitter. It was an unconvincing statement, coming a person who makes a living from communicating, but the sentiment was clear.
When a person says that they’re talked out, it means that they’re feeling emotionally worn out from a long conversation they’ve been participating in.
Sometimes, people who are talked out would just enjoy the solace of a little solitude. Other times,people feel talked out when they’re exhausted from the effort that it takes to express themselves. More often than not, though, the exhaustion comes from having to listen to other people speak in response. Quite often, the emotion of being talked out arrives conveniently at the moment when someone realizes that what they’re saying doesn’t really make sense.
The idea of feeling talked out is usefully ambiguous enough to enable someone to avoid being accused of having any of these specific reactions. What’s more, when asked what they mean when they say that they’re talked out, people can simply repeat themselves, and explain that they’re talked out, and so don’t want to talk about what they mean by talked out.
When someone tells us that they’re talked out, there’s little that anyone can say in response, except to briefly agree, and then walk away.
