Terrible one on one meeting — can anyone help?

Just had a one on one meeting with a new person. The guy clearly wanted to talk (and complain!) about our field of work and how to get ahead, but literally the last thing I wanted to talk about is work.

1. He talked about what he’s doing in his side hustle he’s trying to turn into his main hustle. I listen, right on, but I want to hop to something else.
2. He mentions he has a day job. I express interest in that, and learn about it, and I sound interested in that field.
3. He wants to go back to complaining about the side hustle.
4. He has mentioned something about how Ukraine situation is impacting his day job, so I bring up Ukraine news, and we have a semi-cool conversation about that, as he has some expertise in this area.
5. He is trying to talk about his side hustle again.
6. I notice on his profile something else that’s interesting, and so I ask about that (non-profit stuff). We talk about ALS news today, and I share a bit about the non-profits I’m focused in, and all that. He mentions some non-profity stuff he’s interested in.
7. He cuts meeting 15 minutes short.

I know it’s because I didn’t want to talk about work stuff, but how do I avoid this? I don’t want to talk 30 minutes solid about work, and usually that leads to the person asking for HUGE favors that I can’t do and have to reject, which makes matters worse. Those other topics are way more interesting and a better way to get to know one another.

Maybe I took up too much air time talking about those other topics, but it seemed like the only way to stop him going on about our field.

Is the solution just to never talk to someone in my field? I don’t know.