Dealing With Self-Centered People
There are all sorts of people you meet in your daily lives and among them all the most damning, the most annoying of them all are the self centered ones. They make it impossible for you to use any methods that would take away the attention from them even for a single minute. If you are narrating a story about your life they have to say an equivalent story. God forbid, if you are narrating the problems they will have a bigger problem for you.
To them the attention must always go to them. They have to be at the heart of every conversation. Now this behaviour is either a sign of low self esteem or high narcissim. I lean towards the former as it highlights that the person is suffering from lack of recognition. They have lots of stories to tell that they think will attract the attention towards them. What starts with simple competing narratives escalates to cursing your very life.
If you are smart enough to identify this behaviour in yourself then you better stop it. Not only this is annoying when you are trying to have a conversation with someone but also suggests that you are ungrateful. The words you use influence your beliefs. No matter how smart you think you are, no matter how many times you convince yourself that it’s only to fool others but the words you speak eventually affects your mannerisms which then impacts how people behave towards you.
No body likes someone who hijacks other’s conversations with their own sob story or specific anecdote. Nobody likes someone who always curses their life. The only way to deal with such people without having the awkward confrontation is to let them have their moment. Avoid sharing your own stories in their presence. Let them speak. It takes away the annoyance out of you, you will learn more about that person and everybody walks out happily.