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I have a friend who consistently relates any conversation back to their set topics. Such as North Korea, nazis,soviet union, freemasons and greece. For example, I was talking about disney killing off big characters in their franchises they have bought. And he replies

"oh,hes doing a stalin"

And then lists times when stalin has killed some people for some reason or another. Most times it's like 10% related to what we are talking about, but if we go back onto the original conversation, he will find another way to relate back to one of his chosen topics.

It's quite annoying and I want to know what it's called so I can talk to him about stopping it. If we entertain it he wont stop!

Someone suggested "circular conversations"

Guldsekret
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    Sounds like his needle is stuck. – Yosef Baskin Apr 12 '21 at 20:43
  • I'm sorry, but given the paucity of non-personal examples of a confrontational situation, all we have as an example is your peeve with your friend. This sounds personal, hence, POB....Maybe at Interpersonal Skills.SE? – Cascabel_StandWithUkraine_ Apr 12 '21 at 20:43
  • @Cascabel I don't follow. OP has described a situation, and the particular example involves their friend. They're just asking for a word that describes the friend's behavior, not how to stop their friend from behaving that way, or how to react to their friend. This question seems on-topic for this site, and in fact, off-topic on interpersonal se. – cigien Apr 12 '21 at 20:49
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    BTW...saying that "Disney is doing a Stalin on older characters" is quite witty. – Cascabel_StandWithUkraine_ Apr 12 '21 at 20:50
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    @cigien The OP has given one example only of a situation which may or may not be on-topic here..they have shown no research and base their argument on a single and personal example. That is off-topic for any number of reasons. – Cascabel_StandWithUkraine_ Apr 12 '21 at 20:55
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    I get that your friend's behavior is annoying and tiresome, but this is not the right place for this question. Head over to Interpersonal Skills.SE and ask your question there. – FeliniusRex - gone Apr 12 '21 at 20:59
  • @Cascabel Ah, I see. Sure, there might be multiple reasons the question is off-topic. I just found your comment about it being off-topic because it involves a personal relationship to be very strange. Also your suggestion of interpersonal.se is odd. Unless I'm mistaken and the OP is asking for feedback on how to deal with their friend, requests for single words is off-topic there. – cigien Apr 12 '21 at 21:01
  • *note-to-self: Is there a word or phrase for "help me validate my wrong premise?" on meta. – Cascabel_StandWithUkraine_ Apr 12 '21 at 21:16
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    Does this answer your question? What is the term describing someone who has interest in only a narrow field, and nothing else? Asking for a hypernym, but the answers here are all duplicates. – Edwin Ashworth Sep 10 '21 at 13:40

1 Answers1

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Your question is clear, although limited in its example.

At worst, such a person is a monomaniac

= suffering from or relating to monomania (= a condition in which someone is extremely interested in one thing)

Cambridge

They may be described as monomaniacal

However, the term is for extreme cases and another milder word is to describe the person as fixated

fixated = unable to stop thinking about something

Cambridge

fixated is an adjective and I have been unable to find a corresponding noun to attribute to the person.

You might also consider obsessive. As an adjective or the corresponding noun:

obsessive = thinking about something or someone, or doing something, too much or all the time

Cambridge

Lastly, we have one-track mind

=someone's tendency to think about or be interested in a single subject

Cambridge

This last may be the kindest and least psychological term to describe the behaviour.

Anton
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