Here’s a Midwestern trick for you. Find a lull in the conversation, then use the word “Welp!” and then press your lips together into that flat emoji face 😐. Generally that’s all you need to say to indicate, “regretfully, I need to move on from this interaction now”, and both parties can give their requisite goodbyes before dispersing. If that didn’t get the hint across, throw in a “Alright, well, I’m gonna let you get back to it”, which obviously sounds nicer than “you need to release me from the conversation chokehold you’ve got me in and let me get back to it”, but means the same thing. If they keep talking after that, then they’re the asshole and you can now directly shut down the conversation without the stigma. But don’t forget to apologize for needing to do something other than entertain them and ask their permission to do otherwise, and then thank them when they grant your reprieve. Something like, “Sorry, if it’s alright, I really need to buckle down on this. Can we chat later? Thank you!”
This submissive, conflict-avoidance, time-management solution technique is brought to you courtesy of generations of the painfully polite and non-confrontational interacting with the overly friendly and chatty that defines the culture and the history of the Midwest. In Indiana, that’s as much a daily fixture of our way of life as riding past corn fields stretched to the horizon, the joy of confirming from their license plate that the shitty driver is indeed a Buckeye, and a general obsession with basketball that borders on psychosis.