[objtrbit]

Hiya;

I know we have all seen this before, or possibley have done it ourselves at some point....I created fictional characters to try and explain this...

Is the friend in this story histrionic?

Tom: I went to the grocery store and knocked down one of the display shelves, it was so embarressing!

Wife: Wow, how did you manage that?

Tom: well, I went to reach for a-

(friend interupts)

Friend: Man, you have no idea! That's nothing. One time I knocked down all the bookshelves in the library! I even knew it was gonna happen, had a vision about it and everything!

Wife: that seems a little unrealistic?

Friend: Ya, you would have actually had to be there, I had to punch out a hole in the wall so this women could get out in time. I knew she was there because I could smell her panic; did you know that I could smell fear? One time I was at a movie theatre.....

And that's my example lol. What drives a person to make up such so far out there crazy stories? And, the interuption totally was a giant "I don't care about what happened to you, my story was so much better" statement.

This example was a fairly non-harmful one, but this type of behavior can be so harmful when someone else is going through something rough, and someone else says "that aint nothin" and then goes on a tangent, completely leaving the original person feeling fairly abandoned and/or angry. I've heard this phenomenon refered to as "god's beard syndrome" lol, or "one-uping".

How does one handle this type of behavior?

Thanks,
-obj

[Sunna]

Yup. Know them. Usually these kind of people find out that they maxed out possible attention reservoir, and move on to the new greener pasture. Genuine boredeom of their captive audience is deadly.

In the behavior you described I see 2 things going on. Histrionics AND self-absorbed attention grabbing. They do not need to manifest together. I tend to run on histrionics side. I exagerate quite a lot, use words like "never" and "always". Something that happens or may once a week becomes "daily". Children do that quite a lot. Do you hear how they just "hate" this or that, or something is "best in the world". When I hear myself using these patterns I know it is the child that I have allowed to take control. The child loves drama, but as an adult I knows that being a drama queen does not help communication or relationship. I can thank the child for input and take over a conversation as an adult. It takes a deep breath, and touching my previous committment to not let child ruin communication for me. It ain't easy ... *sigh* (remembering this past weekend... ouch!)

The other behavior is pre-empting other person's story, bringing in myself, when it was not a place and time for me. I believe I have trained myself out of it. For example if someone's dad died suddely, rather than listening to that person's grief, or anger, or just stunned pained silence, I might have launched into a story of how it was when MY dad died, and he was still young, and how hard it was on me. Do I honestly think this person has any room for sympathizing with my long past problems? No, what they need is MY attention on them, my hug, my shoulder. Telling them my story was not a correct expression of my compassion for them. It was easy tendency to drop, because basically I cared, I was just acting stupid.

But I guess you are asking what to do when someone does it to you. Well, first of I would try to get my child out of the driver's seat again (abandonment and anger are the child's reactions), and engage my adult. The adult has enough self-worth that she can tell the person, nicely, "it's a very interesting story you are telling, but you cut me off". And don't whimper it, but speak from a place of self-power. If the rude dude continues, the adult me may just calmly start doing something clearly communicating "I am now ignoring you" or turn to the other person with whom the original conversation was started and start talking abou the weather (be deliberately rude back). That would probably loose you that person, but do you really need friends like this?

I think the best thing to do is to stay in your own dignity and not let them push your buttons.

[slightlysane]

Maybe the friend has ADD and goes from one story to the next.