How to stop making conversations all about me?

[Livlab]

NC for this. I’m aware I’ll maybe get slated for this but I genuinely want to improve. I’ve recently become a new mum and I’m trying to make mum friends. There are women I speak to at the baby classes I go to but the friendship doesn’t seem to extend beyond the class and I think I’m the problem.

For some reason I always end up turning the conversation round to me! It comes from a good place of trying to relate but it actually probably comes across as rude and dismissive of what the other person is saying. I’ll give some examples

Me: how was your holiday
Friend: it was good but it was hard to keep baby cool
Me: yes I know what you mean. When we went to Spain it was difficult to keep DS out of direct sunlight

Me: what are you up to this week
Friend: taking baby swimming
Me: that will be good. I’m going to sign DS up to baby swimming classes. I got him a thermal swimsuit last week.

I am quite good at asking questions as I genuinely am interested, however I always end up making their response all about me!

Can anyone please share some advice on how I can be more mindful of this? And how I can continue the conversation to make the other person know I really am interested?

I’d also be interested to hear if you have anyone who commandeers the conversation like this and how it makes you feel!!!

There is some theory that exists around this with this type of responder being one of the categories. I looked at it in a work course once, but I can’t think what the theory is called!

I’m guilty of this but then realise so bro g the conversation back to them. Tbh it’s just how a conversation works. I find it’s a just a way of showing you understand and can relate to someone

@JoinUsTonight sorry, are we talking about the same Spain?

The one that hordes of British tourists go to on package holidays - actually scratch that, we probably aren't talking about the same Spain at all but seriously, it's the first option for sunseasand holidays, isn't it?

I think in both examples I'd say something like:

"I know what you mean! It can be so hard to keep them out of the sunlight at that age! DS hated wearing a hat - what's Timmy like for that?"

For the other:

"Oh you'll have to let me know how it goes! I've been thinking about signing DS up for a bit. What's the set up like? Do they dunk them?"

So you can relate but also ask questions.

Introspection is good but I wouldn’t necessarily assume that you are the problem. A lot of people are incapable of partaking in healthy conversation. You can certainly try asking more questions but you may discover that these people are actually not particularly interested in friendship (for no other reason than a lot of people are quite dull and self centred). Good, healthy and happy friendships happen naturally, anyway. I didn't find those until my children started school. Just be yourself! If they want to make a friend of you, they’ll keep the conversation going regardless.

I do this too! I’ve started to avoid social events because all I do is spend the night in bed afterwards thinking about how many times I have done this.

That was my point - it's one thing talking about just getting back from your holiday in Spain - everyone goes there at some point, it's a bog standard holiday. Inserting, 'oh yes, when we went to {insert expensive/exclusive holiday destination}' into a conversation - then it's irritating and braggy and often leaves no where to go conversationally because its not relatable.

There's a line between relating, and one upmanship/constant talk about yourself and I think you sound okay, just ask another qn about them every few sentences

But no one needs to edit their own experiences so totally to make them ‘relatable’. That way conversational death beckons, because everyone is trying to find some magic middle ground of ‘relatability’, which bears no resemblance to the reality of their lives.

My mother has a bad habit of talking about stuff she fondly imagines is universally relatable, but which is sometimes visibly baffling to whoever she’s talking to — once at a wedding, she was patting her stomach as the dessert was served and saying ‘Oh, we’ll have to be very strong and cut down after this!’ because she thinks that’s attractively self-deprecating and every woman is locked in some eternal struggle with the scales — despite the fact that the woman she was talking to was a wire-thin athlete who had just actually said she was trying to put on a stone for an ultramarathon by eating all round her.

And then my mother said afterwards she though the other woman was ‘rude’ for not patting her stomach and playing along with the charade of resisting dessert.