Good Manners Combined with Simple Math

Lynnette says I don't have many friends because my tolerance meter is broken, or something like that.  She really irritates me sometimes.  And since I'm on the subject of friends and irritation, I'm avoiding a potential friend because she irritates me. Is it me or is the definition of friendship a give and take relationship?  You talk, I talk, you talk, I talk. Or is it you talk, you talk, you talk, you talk, I try to talk, you interrupt?  I'm a bit confused on that, because sometimes I want to talk, but being a good friend means being a good listener.

I had this very same conversation with another "possible" friend last week.  I told her about the 25% rule.  It's good manners combined with simple math, I said.  When you're socializing with three other people, each person gets a 25% share of the conversation.  If one person doesn't take their 25%, that doesn't mean it's up for grabs.  They need to be encouraged to take their share by a member of the group.  Unfortunately, it took 100% of our time together for me to explain this "good manners/math" rule and now she won't return my calls.

Another likely candidate for friendship didn't make the cut when I was, once again, espousing my 25% rule and she interrupted me after 20 seconds.  "I'm not good a math," she said.  "I failed Algebra in eight grade.  My favorite subject in school was Home Economics.  I liked the cooking classes the best because we got to eat what we cooked."  I told her the 25% rule was not about math but more about good manners in conversation and she said, "Whatever happened to Miss Manners, anyway?  I used to read her advice in the newspaper, but now that I get my news from the Internet, I haven't seen her column.  I'll have to Google her."  When she stopped to take a breath, I inserted myself back into the conversation and continued where I left off, but she was focused on her IPhone and wasn't listening.  "Found it! Isn't it amazing how Google knows everything?" she said before spending the rest of our time together giving me the Wikipedia lowdown on Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners.

My sister thinks I'm taking this 25% rule too far.  I should relax, tolerate peoples' uniqueness and differences, and let conversations go where they go without doing the math.  Did I mention that she irritates me sometimes?