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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To wonder if it's the done thing these days to just talk about yourself?

32 replies

Findingmyself · 29/12/2012 13:14

Am I missing something? I thought in a conversation you were meant to listen as well as talk? Half the people I come across just talk about themselves all the time. If I say anything at all they just bring the conversation back to being about them, or don't acknowledge what's been said and just carry on.

It makes me not want to talk to anyone except a handful of people that do, thankfully, understand the art of proper conversation.

OP posts:
mrsmindcontrol · 29/12/2012 20:09

I know loads of people like this too. Always feel that I know EVERYTHING about them, their mums name, place of birth, milk mans favourite crisp flavour blah blah blah, while they'd be hard pressed to recall a single fact about me.
I once worked with a woman who talked constantly about herself, I used to walk away from her & she'd just follow me to the toilets or whatever constantly talking about shit. She'd miss any social cue that I just wasn't fucking interested. Totally unbelievable.

FoofFighter · 29/12/2012 20:12

I ditched a friend this year for this crime - I've had the most awful year and she never once asked about me, was always her her her [draw breath] her her her her her.
Had enough and deleted her from my life now. No time for people like that.

upstart68 · 29/12/2012 20:17

I think it goes in extremes. I don't have many school gate friends. One of the two I have talks constantly about herself. Sometimes the monologues are really boring. But I listen and nod in the right places. I suppose I am enabling her by not butting in more. Sometimes I try but other times I don't have the energy. I'm quite sure she doesn't listen to a word I say when I do get a word in edgeways.

Another friend I have gives nothing away. I ask questions - they get turned into questions about me. She is very secretive. You can spend an entire weekend with her and come away not knowing anything more than you went with.

Both are incredibly frustrating. Two way conversations, where you share experiences, are so much more satisfying.

TheUKGrinchImGluhweinkeller · 29/12/2012 20:18

I don't think its new. Rabbits and SomethingOnce have good points - social media is rarely a conversation, and posting statues is like standing on the roof tops and shouting mostly mundane stuff about yourself... Xmas Confused doesn't stop people replying though.

I really think there have been people who do this for ever and ever though. A lot of people (face to face IRL rather than online) witter on and on out of social nerve and the need to fill a silence though, sometimes its ego, other times its nerves.

My mother is in her 60s and does it btw which is part of the reason I think it can't be new - she tries to ask questions but they are either closed questions or so specific that they lead the conversation into a blind ally and are usually designed to lead to something she wants to tell the listener about herself - drives me particularly mad when she does it to the kids on the phone, they are still little so are blunter than an adult and DS1 will even hand the phone to me while she is in full long winded flow - luckily for her she doesn't know the kids phone MIL of their own free will to chat, but have to be bribed to speak to my mother on the phone :(

tethersjinglebellend · 29/12/2012 21:16

Enough about me- what do you think about me?

BrianCoxandTheTempleofDOOM · 29/12/2012 21:31

I have a friend, who is a very good friend and has been very supportive in the past (so not dumpable because for her faults, she is also very lovely). Just before Christmas she came to drop DD's present off, she wasn't staying as was on her way elsewhere and we stood in my front room chatting.

I stood with my back to the mirror, facing her (so she was facing the mirror). The entire time she was talking to me (about herself and her DH) she talked to the mirror, over my shoulder, constantly checking her reflection.

It made me laugh (silently) that she wasn't even bothered/aware she was doing it. Told my mum later on (I am friends with this woman through my mum) and she just said "yep, that's X for you" Grin

I have on occasion found myself gabbing on about myself unintentionally. I will then make an effort to not talk about myself and ask questions/listen to the other person. This is due to me not having adult conversations very often (other than work based/school based) and I get a bit over excited when somebody chooses to talk to me about 'me' Grin Blush

RabbitsMakeGOLDBaubles · 29/12/2012 22:09

It's a part of HFA where you don't recognise appropriate cues to shut up and listen. I fill space with words because I get uncomfortable with silence and I can only talk from my own point of view because I find it hard to put myself anywhere else, so I try to empathise with what someone says, by likening it to an appropriate thing that happened to me once, but then people say this is wrong and not empathising but draining.

I do try to recall appropriate things to say, how are you is generally my opener for people to talk about their things, but so often they just say fine, and then I'm like....... .... .... and start talking hoping they can join in, but then forgetting it's meant to be a conversation and telling my story. I just about remember now that it's appropriate to make my mother a cup of tea when she comes round to visit, I kind of just expect people to ask or get their own and it never occurs. And mum says she can't feel comfortable at mine because I can't sit still and chat when she visits, that's just my nerves about someone being in my house making me restless.

It can seem rude to people, which is why I don't have a lot of friends. I am only just gaining an understanding of it myself now, so I still find myself having to explain to people about me. Tell me when you want or need something, don't be offended if I don't manage blatant emotion well, if I disappear for weeks at a time I am generally overwhelmed with life and not falling out with you, if I am being a dick, point it out because I probably don't know I am. That sort of thing.

Some people are probably unwittingly the same as I am. I only know about it because my kids are in the process of being diagnosed with similar. I've used forums for years as a sort of go to as it's the only way I can come across as me with my humour and understanding of things, without the weird moments and awkward pauses. And even then sometimes I am not convinced, lol.

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