[coldwutlulz]

Does anyone else do this? I've read that people who do this are usually very manipulative and have an inflated ego. The thing is, I speak/think in third person. I really don't know why I do sometimes. If you speak in third person, does that mean you're a narcist?(sp) or could something else be going on?

[Perna]

Hi, coldwutlulz, speaking in third person is called "illeism":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illeism

It could be you read or heard someone doing that when you were younger and liked/copied it?

[madisgram]

you used the first person in your post. perhaps that's progress.

[DenisDonnacha]

as Denis reads this post he gets a sudden urge to speak in the third person.

[unaluna]

Originally Posted by DenisDonnacha

as Denis reads this post he gets a sudden urge to speak in the third person.

hankster laughs and wishes she had thought of this!

[DenisDonnacha]

Originally Posted by hankster

hankster laughs and wishes she had thought of this!

Denis reads this response and is happy someone found it funny, and also slightly proud that he got in there first.
:P

[Lexi232]

sometimes... but......
its cause we get all jumbled and puzzled and clouded..

[unaluna]

Originally Posted by DenisDonnacha

Denis reads this response and is happy someone found it funny, and also slightly proud that he got in there first.
:P

Hankster has great respect for people who make the hankster laugh. Jokes will be remembered by the hankster sometimes long after the OP (Original Prankster) has forgotten them. The Mentalist has a memory palace? The hankster has a joke...tent? what are some fancy camping words? there's a joke in there somewhere.

[madisgram]

"tent" and camping re the hankster
madisgram says "the head"

[Perna]

Originally Posted by coldwutlulz

If you speak in third person, does that mean you're a narcist?(sp) or could something else be going on?

I would go with your heart on this one; that you are concerned you may be a narcissist means you probably are not. I almost always go with the "something else" when I don't like another of the possibilities and see if I can discover what it is for myself and then decide if I mind.

If it were me, I would imagine that thinking and speaking of myself as if I were someone else would mean I did not know or like myself very much so I would set out to see if I could deliberately get to know and like me.

Maybe you can start every morning with writing 10 "I" statements or something? Practice using "I" and thinking "I" and it should get easier. Or, if you like using the third person, figure out what it is that you like about it (it can give a third person perspective so you can more easily see a larger personal picture); I sometimes talk to my body or parts of my body, for example, sometimes even naming them and writing letters to them, etc. to understand them better and what pain or feelings I do not like might be telling me.

[Adelissa]

I sometimes catch myself doing this with children (name) needs to go to the bathroom, I will be right back. As I think of it now it is kinda condescending, like talking down to them...not judging anyone else, just myself. Anyway, that is the only time I do it... but I do think if it bothers you just practice saying I and eventually it will become second nature. My autistic niece does the third person a lot and sometimes I worry I am modeling wrong for her so trying to say I more myself...

[sandworm]

Originally Posted by DenisDonnacha

as Denis reads this post he gets a sudden urge to speak in the third person.

hey, I am confused, oh, wait, no I am not.



SW

[sandworm]

I do get confused with most speech. someone will say "you are so.." and I don't
know if they mean "you" as in Thou,
I do find the second person usage helpful
Thou Second person singular, archaic -
Ye Second person plural, archaic

As sometime I can not tell if the speaker means 'just me" or "just the other person' or
both of us, or all present, or everybody'.
third person may have some benefit with but I am not sure what it does.
SW

[lancetrot]

It could mean that you can easily unplug yourself from your own actions and thoughts. You can easily very well take a step back from what you are doing and objectively view yourself. If this is the case that's great, since you'll be able to apply it to your advantage. A lot of people cannot fare this.

[coldwutlulz]

Thanks for the informative and funny replies everyone.

[-jimi-]

Parents do this with their little kids all the time. "Come to mommy." "Don't take daddy's newspaper."

My pet peeve is when someone talks about themselves and needs non existent backup, so go plural. "In this chat room we love one another." Sure.

[mgran]

I hate it when nurses do the first person plural thing to patients, like when my husband was in hospital. "Now, dear, we want to eat some of the nice soup, don't we?"
"No, we don't. You might, but I really really don't want to touch that muck." (Genuine response from my husband!)

But apparently, from a psychological point of view some people use the third person not because they are pompous or vain, but because they have a low sense of their own identity. That's why when you read the Bible, most of the books allegedly written by Moses, or David, or Samuel, or whomever, are in the third person. They didn't want to big themselves up if the hero of the story was God.

That's one of the clues as to which later books are forgeries... for example, the Book of Mormon literally starts of with a flurry of first person singular (I, myself, me...) which is an anachronism for the time it was supposed to have been written.

Some early commentators on the new testament used to accuse the New Testament letter writers of being vain because they stated so clearly who they were, whereas the gospel authors kept themselves out of the main frame by writing in the third person (allegedly.) Other ancient written traditions have the same focus.

So, in that tradition, if I said, "Late at night many people could not sleep, and so wrote messages on the internet. Mgran waffled on so much that people finally fell asleep", I'd be considered to be being polite. Whereas if I wrote "Last night people couldn't sleep, so I wrote messages to help them doze off" I'd be considered to be a screaming egocentric.

Like most things, it's a matter of the culture we live in.

I hear it can be a sign of an identity disorder. But I do know (mgran knows) that it's not always to do with vanity, or humility... sometimes it's just a style of speech. Nothing wrong with that.