Yes, Ygrec, I know someone exactly like that. She can't stop talking either!

We've been friends for about 20 years. Putting all of her speaking to me together, live-in-person + phone, I'd say she has talked non-stop through at least one of those years. And we're not even close to being best friends. She is not, BTW, a drinker--much less an alcoholic.

According to her children & life-long friends, she has always been this way. At parties she usually holds the focus of 8-10 people at a time. Done with one group, she moves on to another. Now that she's 95, when possible, she loves events giving her the opportunity to sit in one place & have people come one by one to sit & visit for awhile--which turns out to be about 90% her. Yet oddly, talking as much as she does, she manages to pull out a lot of information from the people passing through. She's a crackerjack interviewer.

When she & her husband (she's on her fifth--no, none divorced her), when they had to go into assisted living, she nearly got herself on the "get rid of" list the first month. Workers from every department complained that she would manage somehow to get them inside her apartment--then start talking & keep talking & they'd be unable to get on with their work. I had to go in & train them in the fine art of 1. Telling her you had to leave, then 2. Backing out the door while she continued to talk. I promised them she would not take offense. She never did. In fact she's never mentioned people walking out on her, & I've held these "trainings" in all the places they've lived.

People get caught up by her quite easily because she's lived & worked all over the world & has absorbed the culture & more endearing aspects of the people she's lived among. She tells great stories & tells them so well. She's smart, educated, & funny. It's really not until your hand cramps around the phone, or your legs in the chair, that you realize you've not said a single word for the past hour and she's in Egypt somewhere and you have this feeling that you're going to be late for your next appointment.

I didn't know there was anyone else like her. If there's a name for this condition, I haven't any idea what it might be. Please advise should you discover one.