So me and two of my friends have to commute 50mins on the train with that annoying dude every week.
We have now known him for around 2 years and most if not all people in our class are irritated by his behaviour. He is condescending, joins every conversation and generally doesn't really understand social cues. He also has a very irritating voice, talks really slow and has never anything that interesting to say because he is mostly complaining about something.
Even if we have not interacted with him all day he will join us on the train, where he then somehow always dominates the conversations. I am at a point were I can't hear him talk anymore and would love to just avoid interacting with him if possible. My friends mostly agree and think short conversations are fine but long conversations are draining but somehow everytime we are on the train they start asking him questions basically giving him the floor to monologue for the whole train ride.
I am bored to tears and just annoyed and have therefore asked them if we could just talk about things we actually find interesting without specifically asking him anything. He can be part of the conversation I don't mind that I just don't have the energy to just listen to the same 3 topics he has talked about for the last 2 years.
My friends think it would be kinda mean to do that and that they don't mind if he is yapping because they just turn their brains off completely ignoring that I have said multiple times that I don't want to have to interact with him at all. They say it would be rude to talk about things he might not find that interesting and that we shouldn't make him feel left out.
So am I the asshole for wanting to have actually nice conversations the three of us would enjoy instead of sparing his feelings and all of us being zoned out?
Edit: I just want to make clear that they also don't want to talk to him but do so out of politeness