"That Guy"

So, I wanna take a minute to identify a personality type that I am seeing more and more frequently... "That Guy"! Ok, "That Guy" is the person that during a conversation, game or on rare occasion out of the complete blue will completly unload his thoughts on you about a particular topic. Most commonly in gaming you see this with uber-fanboys, that eat, sleep and breathe a certain interest. While I can stereotype and say that they are generally unkempt and sporting articles of clothing in homage to their passion, this is hugely inaccurate. And there in lies the greatest power of "That Guy"... The sneak attack!

So, your playing a game and boom like a pressure sensitive mine he is triggered and now he is in a tirade about his random passion, and your stuck! At this point your only options are to become an asshole and tell this guy to shut up, politely ignore him and hate the next few hours of your life or fake a call/medical condition/natural disaster! These mental patients don't just stop at telling you what they like, but rather outline the known history of the topic and the begin to brow beat you for your lack of knowledge / interest! Conventions are perhaps the worst place for being the victim of a sneak attack, especially if you are trying to sell merchandise. This puts you in a position to engage every passer by to attempt to illicit a new sale. Then all of the sudden it happens... you have a guy that has lit up like rocket shooting for the stars and he is locked on you! He begins by ignoring the rules of personal space and hovers centimeters in front of your face telling you about his collection of gaming books that he has re-covered in human flesh and had signed in blood by Gary Gygax. He is quizzing you to see if you are his topical equal or the other almost 99.9% that is inferior and in his eyes ignorant to good things. Now he'll start to tell you the history you could care less about, and then explain how everything you think is good sucks by comparison. He'll break out items from his random he's concealed God knows where and he'll try and show you each and every part of it until you swear eternal allegence to his obsession.

God forbid anyone else try to jump in and save you. He'll just sit there quietly stroking his dice bag waiting to jump back on you, or if you need to leave he'll follow you even to placesa you consider normally out of bounds. I had a guy follow me to the bathroom one time and continue his lecture while I did my business!

So, this is terrible, right... but what is the proper etiquette?? Even more so what about the different approaches from a convention setting to a local game group? I'm not sure but I'm going to attempt to chronical my encounters with "That Guy" for educational and recreational purposes!