There are others who feel the same as you, rest assured.

Agreed.

Those guys are in every pub I've ever been in. We call them "yeah buts"
because no matter what you say they start their next sentence with, "yeah
but". Experts on everything. They usually hang out in their own amazingly
dysfunctional group -- and you see the exact same odd behaviour here. You
would think that these guys would avoid each other but they're actually
attracted, I can't explain it but it repeats itself every day in the pub and
on the newsgroups.

As an aside, once (in the pub) they were arguing about breast milk ... I
**** you not. It got so heated one of them stormed out ... I thought I was
going to split a gut laughing.

If their cronies aren't around you can get cornered but luckily they're so
busy listening to themselves talk it's usually easy to get away from them.
They seem to try to address as many people as possible so when their head is
turned talking to someone else you just move away and look busy.

For those times when you are truly cornered, well let's see, I've had
friends phone me on my cell with a concocted story to extract me, I once had
friends have a glass of water and two Tylenol delivered to my table (that
one was difficult to explain to the yeah but).

I've been not alone and cornered too and we'll look at each other and
quietly ask, "did you order more swizzlesticks?". It sounds like we're
discussing bar business but the swizzlesticks are an inside joke for what we
would like to have handy to stab our eardrums with.

So when I see a post from one of these guys I just think "breast milk" and a
tap on the delete button makes them go away.