Are you the star of the show?

[cheesybutter]

I was talking to a colleague this weekend (works night out) and she made a comment about how she was the star of the the show. I said "well we're all the star of our own lives" and she said no that out of everyone in her life, her family, friends and colleagues she sees herself as the main player and that everyone else was just a bit part to her staring role and that everything revolved around her, everyone wanted her time and company because she's the star of their lives as well as her own!

She is a single, mid 40's women with no kids, she has a very active social life and in my experience a caring person who does a lot of people but can be a bit of diva but I was shocked that she literally thinks that she is the star not only of her own life but of everybody else's life!

She wasn't even tipsy because she was driving so it wasn't drink talking. In one way I admire her confidence but I also find it kind of bizarre, I don't know perhaps lots of people go about thinking that? I can be preoccupied with my own life and stuff like anyone else but I don't imagine anyone but my nearest and dearest think about me too much at all!

@Angrymum22 nice to know that because I am too unwell to ever have children, I am doomed to live the rest of my life as a selfish asshole who never puts anyone else first. tomorrow, I am going to go and shake all the bottles of fizz in the supermarket and trip up old ladies. if I am doomed to be a selfish cow, I might as well have fun with it. incidentally - mother Teresa was childless, a self centred person if I ever knew one!

There's nothing humble or apologetic about your post

Yes we are all jealous that we are no longer single and child free

Many women who end up single and childless end up that way through circumstance rather than choice. If you want to allow your jealously of that position to lead you to make cruel remarks about them then maybe those 60 years of life experience haven't taught you as much as they should have done about empathy and compassion.

when I joined, it was a bloody site for mums.

When I joined well over a decade ago it had an infertility board so women without children have been encouraged by MN for years. So you have had plenty of time to leave if that no longer suited you

Yes we are all jealous that we are no longer single and child free. But someone’s got to do it.

So women only have kids and partners because they’re sacrificing themselves for the greater good? No wonder you’re angry.

I wish mumsnet had a way of indicating sarcasm.

OP if you enjoy your friends company just let her comments go over your head. There is no point ruining a good friendship.

I'm going to reiterate the comment I made previously

Many women who end up single and childless end up that way through circumstance rather than choice. If you want to allow your jealously of that position to lead you to make cruel remarks about them then maybe those 60 years of life experience haven't taught you as much as they should have done about empathy and compassion.

Calling it sarcasm doesn't make your comment any less cruel

@Angrymum22 you really are rather unpleasant aren't you?

Na, don't think so. She might be getting lots of attention due to behaving in a way that draws attention but people are likely to be bored or irritated by her. This attitude is barely tolerable in a young child or teen but becomes a bit tragic over the age of 30

And what angrymum is not right. I know many competitive mothers who are attention seeking and selfish 😂

I’ve noticed that the person like this in most families (whether single / married / kids) is the fabled most-hated SIL.

I appreciate the apology, that was nicely put. Thank you.

If you read my posts carefully I didn’t say that. I have just seen more of it in single, childless women and of course the majority of men whether single or not.
I suppose that in the job that I do I get to see a lot of people but not really superficially. I build up a relationship over many years in most cases. My opinion is based purely on observation.
I know plenty of women with children who are “special” but most still prioritise their children.
I’m not trying to be controversial, I just say it how I see it. It’s not something you can do in rl. Unfortunately, you will always upset someone with your point of view.
However, it would still be useful to have a way of indicating sarcasm or irony. In real life I am really quite self deprecating, but that often doesn’t come across online, it’s often misinterpreted.

Yes, like most online key tappers I like to upset people and offend. Fortunately, I’m old, tolerant and have been offended many times.
In real life I wouldn’t dream of calling someone unpleasant to their face.

most still prioritise their children.

20% of children suffer abuse, but sure it's still the childless women who are the real villans here 🙄

I’m sorry that you think I am jealous. I left all that behind when I left school.
I spent ten years attending an infertility clinic following ten years of endometriosis. Nothing worked so we gave up, booked a holiday of a lifetime to celebrate our 40th birthdays then 6 wks before we were due to leave I found out I was pregnant. So I’m sort of qualified to comment on how hard infertility is.
I had my miracle but have never forgotten how it feels. That doesn’t leave you nor does the memory of multiple miscarriages.
I don’t dispute that many childless women are not childless by choice. What I have observed is that they put themselves first by default. It isn’t wrong to put yourself first but it may be something that you are unaware of.
Please accept my apologies if you are childless because of infertility it is shit and nothing anyone can say will make it easy to accept. It took me two years to get my head around a future without children. Just because I had a child doesn’t mean I didn’t go through the heartbreak of drawing a line under it. I’m not here to take the piss but just to voice my experience.

It isn’t wrong to put yourself first but it may be something that you are unaware of.

I'm not single, not everyone who disagrees with your cruel comments is automatically single you know.

I’m not here to take the piss but just to voice my experience.

You aren't voicing your experience. You are voicing your perceived experience of women you have nothing in common with and talking over their voices when they disagree with you. You are literally making it all about you, your job, your life, your infertility, your experience, your opinions. Whilst calling other narcissistic

I’m sorry you find me objectionable and insensitive. I take what you say on board and will bow out of the conversation. Perhaps you are right and that my lack of sensitivity is truly a failing in my character.
I will stick to threads where opinions are not asked for to avoid confrontation in the future.

Ok, I’ll bite. I am incredibly nosy and noticed that despite others freely applying the N word, a group of PPs pounced on my original post, which , if you had actually read suggested that women with children who were their own centre of attention were probably narcs.
Having done a bit of digging you all swooped onto this thread from another thread after it was highlighted . Having speed read my post and misunderstood you then skipped the multiple narc references from other posts and targeted me. Shame on you.

NRTFT but I see there's been some discourse.

I always say to my children that I, me, am the most important person in my life and that they too should centre themselves.

Not in a dick way, but because they matter.

It's impossible to care about others unless you care about yourself.

My first husband was/is like this. He would never blatantly say it though, it’s just there in all his actions and behaviours and attitudes, maybe he doesn’t even know it.

Everyone else is just an extra, not even supporting actors really in his life 😁

Whereas I am exactly the same person I was before I had DS. He’s a delightful addition, and I adore him and ensure his welfare, but my ‘whole being’ certainly hasn’t changed. I think you’re confusing poverty and gendered doormattery with unselfishness.

She sounds incredibly self-involved. I’m surprised you think she is caring and that this attitude doesn’t emerge in other ways OP - do you think you have a good read on her? I’m interested in the PP who mentioned ‘performance caring’. I’ve never heard the term before but it sounds like a few people I know…!

@MissBeevor I have thought about your comment and initially, looking back to the 1960s/70s when my DM was mothering, would, perhaps, have agreed with your gendered doormatery comment, but I struggle to remember any of my DM’s social group that didn’t work. They were mostly professionals who were far from doormats. As for poverty, I cannot claim poverty, that would be grossly disingenuous. No DM just got out of the habit of spending money on herself.
I suppose it was overwhelming for me because at 40 I had been living the “me, myself, I “ life for so long. And maybe I was incredibly selfish before I was a mother.