Socially Acceptable Butting

I am the victim of it, and I am the perpetrator of it. You feel little empathy when you do it, yet you are annoyed when it is done to you. I am of course speaking of butting in. That is to say entering a conversation that two people were having, injecting your opinion, or worse just totally interrupting.  I have seen this happen time and time again , most recently at Institute.

This is one of this is one of those times where I ask you my Pete Chat readers, is this okay? Let me set up the scenario. Two people are having a conversation, it could be serious but most likely it's just chit chat. Another third party comes up and starts to speak to one part of the aforementioned conversation, and the so ends the conversation.

I see this all the time. Two people are talking, someone walks up, freezes out one of the other people, and that person is forced to stand around awkwardly, wondering if they should hang around or, just move on and butt into someone else's conversation.

This seems like bad manners to me. If you want talk to someone politely wait your turn  and soon enough you'll have your chance. That being said I butt in all the time. I see one of my friends and they might be talking to someone, and I'll think, oh I have something important to tell them (usually it is not at all important) and just start jabbering away.

I distinctly remember talking to my friend Seth at church and some girl walked up and just butted in and Seth was standing there awkwardly. He walked away, and I thought wow that was pretty rude that she did that. She was totally unaware, and then as we were talking someone butted in and I was standing there, like a huge lame-o. It is rather disheartening to lose a conversation butt in. It' akin to losing a call waiting face-off.

At times I am supremely thankful for a butt in. Maybe you find yourself in a conversation you have no interest in or perhaps you have not found a way to gently extricate yourself, a timely butt in can be a great escape plan.

I'm wondering what you all think think. Is it ok to butt in? Are we to the point where we can talk to the people we want to talk to when we want to talk to them? And what should the appropriate response be?

I feel like it should be something to the effect of "I'm talking to so and so right now, but I really want to give you full attention, I'll come and find you and then we'll talk."

 What say you?