He interrupted me in meetings, so I let him finish answering every question

I work at a tech company where most meetings happen over Zoom. There’s this guy on our team, let’s call him Paul, who has a habit of cutting people off, especially women. I’m not the only one he does this to, but I seem to be a frequent target.

It’s not even aggressive interruptions. He just starts talking over me mid-sentence like I wasn’t even speaking. Every time I try to share an idea or update, it’s always “Actually” or “What I think she’s trying to say is” followed by him rewording exactly what I was about to say, acting like it’s his own contribution.

I brought it up to him once privately, and he brushed it off. He said he gets passionate in discussions. I wasn’t convinced, but whatever.

I decided I wasn’t going to fight him anymore. Instead, I figured I’d let him dig his own hole.

At the next meeting, when I was called on to share my thoughts, I didn’t even finish my first sentence before Paul interrupted. So I just stopped and went silent. Everyone on the call went quiet too, waiting for me to speak.

Paul said, “Sorry, go ahead.”

I replied, “No, it’s okay. Sounds like you’ve got it. Please, continue.”

He awkwardly stumbled through a half-explained version of my report because he didn’t actually know the full details. Our manager eventually cut in and said we should go back to me so we could hear the actual update.

The next meeting was the same thing. I let him interrupt, paused, and then said, “I’ll wait,” and muted myself. He started to realize that every time he interjects, he ended up looking clueless.

After that, he completely stopped cutting me off.