Image of a screenshot of Twitter of a screenshot of Facebook.
The Facebook screenshot reads:
Fun fact about me: When I’m having a conversation with you, I will periodically bring up personal experiences from my own life, interspersed withing your own stories that you’re telling me. I’m not doing this to try and make the conversation about me, or to take away from your own experience. Actually, what I’m attempting to do, is to try and show you that I do, in fact, understand what you’re trying to tell me, and that I am giving your story my full attention.
It can really be off-putting to some people, so if I’ve ever done this to you during a conversation, I just wanted to make sure you know that I wasn’t trying to take over your story, I was just doing my best to connect with you in the moment.
The screenshot of Twitter reads:
This. I am fully aware that I do this. And I feel so guilty every time, but this. Understand this.
Wait. Is that not normal? I do exactly this all the time.
It can be seen as rude because you’re interrupting someone’s story.
My coworker does this neat trick where she interrupts with, “Oh I have a story too but I’ll tell it later. Remind me!”
And I always liked how she does that.
It’s physically painful to try to keep the story in.
I find that neurotypical people feel like you’re trying to compete with them for how bad your life is. They want to have it worse than you so they can get more sympathy. By making them feel like their struggles are not exceptional, you make them feel somehow less special. I never really understood that, but I guess a lot of people just can’t stand to lose, even if it’s a race to the bottom.
This is nothing about winning or losing or not feeling special. It’s not always rude to bring the conversation back to you, but often when someone is telling a story it’s respectful to keep the conversation about their story until they’re done. Then they will extend you that curtesy. But the conversation didn’t start with your story or interjection, it only popped into your head because someone else is talking. Next time, you can start the conversation about your story and the listener will let you finish.
I think sometimes it’s about winning. I knew this one guy who just ALWAYS did it better, or had it worse. If he asked how you were doing and you said “Great! I just beat a tough level on Candy Crush!” He’d say (and I’ll add that he didn’t have an aggressive tone at all, he was always friendly) “Oh that’s great! I used to play that game a lot. Haven’t touched it since I beat ALL the levels, though”
And even if you immediately followed that up with, “but, I just got news that my grandma isn’t doing well.” He’d be like, “Oh man, that’s hard to hear, one of my grandma’s has Alzheimer’s, and the other has terminal cancer all over her body. Could get the call any day.”
And even though he was always friendly I walked away from every conversation feeling like I didn’t matter at all.