People who only talk about themselves

All of the women in my family. Get them in a room together and it’s like a competition of who can hold court. They will literally talk over someone else who is talking and try to be louder and more forceful to win the room.

I don’t know how I came from the same family. I’ve always asked questions and wanted to be asked back but offer relevant info about myself if it makes sense.

I’ve tried just coming out with my own information around the talkers but they grab it and use it to talk about themselves even more! You give up in the end.

It’s not something I’ve observed among my friends. In your shoes, if literally all of your friends are doing this, I’d be asking yourself if it’s something you’re doing. Are you positioning yourself as the listening ear/shoulder to cry on? Your post suggests you are.As ever, the only behaviour you can change here is your own. Next time you see a friend, don’t ask eagerly for ‘all their news’, say ‘Let me tell you what’s been going o n in my life’. Don’t wait to be invited to talk.

@NoBiscuitsLeftInMyTinwhat does weighting watches mean?

Have you ever been to a dinner party where all of the men decide to weight their watches (again - I don't mean more than once a night - but since the last dinner party they were all at) That does get boring.....

I’ve done a cull. Removed all those people and heard not a jot from any of them.

Feels good.

What I just fail to understand is their lack of awareness that I or who we are with have not spoken a single word in ages.

Not a word, they have talked at me/us for 15,20,40,60 minutes and not once have any of us spoken.

They just don’t seem to notice or care either.

The absolute pits though is when you do finally get a small window to chip in and they interrupt, cut you off to continue to talk about themselves again.
Gone. Removed, gone from my contacts.

Those people who have a genuine interest in you and what you are up to are rare indeed. I too am interested in them.
Luckily, I have a couple of them. Keep them close. Worth their weight in gold are them folk.

I have two friends like this. One is male and almost definitely on the autistic spectrum. The other is female and seems addicted to drama as she always has something going on no matter how quiet you'd think her life would be in her present circumstances. But she's always fighting with someone or complaining about something. And yes never asks about me. She doesn't have the mental capacity to.

I'm not making excuses for people, but do they have many people to talk to? I've found that people with a reduced circle tend to just brain dump when they see someone more than others who have a wider circle with more frequent contact.

A work friend of mine is like that. I said something about my dad and she was utterly dismissive along the likes of 'oh, a lot of people are like that...' .
The next time she started up about her sister's MILs i walked out of the office.

Yeah some people do go on about themselves too much but tbh my sister complains about this but NEVER volunteers any information about herself, gives short answers, makes any detail about what she’s been up to so hard to elicit then whinges ‘nobody asks me anything’. They’re bored of asking, just say it.

I think people don’t get to actually talk to people enough now and so all their stuff comes out. I also think there’s a slight irony to people saying they don’t talk to people any more because they don’t want to hear about them, that sort of means they want to talk about themselves more

I find with friends that we quite often share experiences - I guess that could look like we only talk about ourselves? But we want to know about each other. We've had interesting lives!

My father only talks about himself. Or rather, things he finds interesting in his life. He doesn't care to know about me. I avoid him.

I guess you could try to find different friends? Mix things up a bit.

I have a friend who can talk about herself for as long as you let her. I didn’t mind too much because I don’t think she has that many people to talk to but I’ve been ignoring her calls for the past few months because I’m having my own troubles with DD2 and just don’t have the bandwidth for it at the moment. She will ask after DD2 and then say ‘I’m sure she’ll be all right’ when actually no, nobody can be sure of that.

I agree to the extent that I distance myself from the “me me me, let’s talk about me” brigade.

For example, I have a relative who never takes a breath, talks only about herself, daughter and grandson. Never mentions her DH who is a lovely man.

I’ve stopped contacting her. She will never say “that’s enough about me. What about you?”
It really winds me up. So selfish.

@IceColdChardonayPls
Yes, that’s exactly what these are like. I never send any in return.

I often find myself cursing WhatsApp.
For years, I managed to avoid social media. I know it sounds mean but the people I know just like an audience too much and I’m the opposite.
Now all of the stuff I don’t see on Facebook etc is sent to me by WhatsApp.
That and the long monologue sent while driving/ eating/ shopping and so on.
It just shows they literally don’t care whether I’m even listening or not.
When I do talk to them on the phone, most of the time I’m just hmm, yeah, oh etc.

I’ve got a friend who sends me big long WhatsApp audios of her just monologuing at me about her life.

This was the first I’d come across people doing this and I listened to the first few, incredulously.

After that I just said “sorry, I don’t do voice messages”.

she laughed and said she sends them because she can do it when she’s driving.

I just don’t entertain it.

I met up with a good friend a week after my 40th birthday. Lunch in a nice restaurant.

she had recently moved house and I took her a housewarming gift.

she made no mention of my birthday. Asked nothing about me.

3 hours about her trials and tribulations then I got the bus home.

im not a person who is big on birthdays, but even I thought that was a bit much.

Also recently bereaved and haven’t heard from her.

I won’t be bothering again.

I think you just need to cull these people, OP.

Omg, I had a 'friend' like that. Boasted about her salary, said she wouldn't get out of bed for x amount (I think she assumed I earned a lot more than I did, though she never asked) AND gossiped about others...constantly. They were people I didn't even know, so it was doubly tedious. If I dared try and say that maybe she was being unfair to random person she'd get annoyed and defensive.

I find people do this more as they age. Some people have always been like this obviously and not everyone does it more as they get older, but I’ve noticed a lot of people do.
My older siblings drop in a cursory how are things with you, but only to give themselves license to have a completely one sided conversation til I have to say sorry I’m going now.
They often leave long voice messages which are literally just them having a conversation with themselves.
My mum does it even more now her hearing is going and I’ve noticed that with other people too.

Yes. One of my in laws is like this. Every conversation, no matter what the topic, she will somehow direct back to herself.
She will half heartedly ask about my family, I often only get a couple of sentences in, before she starts to talk about herself again.

I say very little nowadays, as I can’t really be bothered. I just listen and nod. We don’t see her often, probably every 2/3 months, so it’s not a big deal.

This is it though, turn taking is not conversation. It’s sequential monologuing. To my mind, conversation includes following up on people’s comments with interested questions. This is surely how we express our active engagement with each other’s lives.

I know plenty of people who can’t converse, including my own mother, and I think it’s because of a genuine lack of interest. My Mum knows nothing about my real, current life because she can only talk about herself. She becomes visibly uncomfortable when she runs out of material. When she does bring up some event or relationship in my life it’s comically outdated (eg about people I haven’t seen for 40 years). Or it’s just a springboard for her turning the conversation back to herself.

That said, I do believe some people think asking questions is intrusive and “personal”.

I think that's an interesting point about different conversation styles @CalypsoCuthbertson and I have made the effort to talk about myself too, thinking perhaps a friend doesn't feel comfortable asking me questions. But I often get a glazed over look in response and no real engagement with what I've said.

Others can be great - they will engage with what I've told them and make comments based on that, and take the conversation forward. But they tend to be the question-askers anyway.

Yep agree - everything is brought to light and sped up in the internet age, whereas previously it all happened at slower pace and out of sight.

My in laws sap my energy too as they’d happily drone on about themselves and their friends’ gossip for ages. They do ask the odd question but they don’t listen attentively to me and they judge/dismiss or just aren’t on the same wavelength so don’t get my perspective on things or my dreams/hopes etc. I think you just have to limit your time/attention/energy with certain people.

placemarkkng, as my in laws are like this to an extreme. I’ve thought about it for a long time, but never been able to reason why or exactly how to deal with it or even make peace with it. And it seems that the more I indulge it, the worse it gets.