Things You Can Do If Your Friends Only Talk About Themselves

When I started to spend time with her I didn’t notice she talks only about herself.

In the beginning, the meetings with this kind of friend are very interesting. She was talking about her anecdotes, boys, cooking preferences, her days, and so on.

I said, it’s interesting in the beginning. But after some time, when the first impression passes, you realize that they talk about themselves all the time. The stories you talk about are neglected. You begin to doubt the sincerity of the friendship and wonder if she is only using you as a sounding board for her own problems.

Why Does My Friend Only Talk About Herself?

That was the question I wonder then. I was doing research and realized many people deal with overtalkers and one-sided friendships. The answer to this question was these friends are a kind of narcissist.

Narcissistic personality disorder is expressed as a person’s need for attention and lack of feelings for others. Their emotional intelligence is low so they are not aware of others’ problems. If they are, they don’t show much interest in them. But they expect others to have empathy for them. Heh, very interesting condition.

This is a profile of friends who only talk about themselves. When I used to start to talk about my family problems, for example, I noticed my friend is nodding but her eyes were wandering around. She repeated some of my words just to pretend she listens but she actually didn’t. You know, it’s obvious when someone really listens to you and when they do not listen but only pretend, to meet social rules.

How Do you Deal With Friends Who Only Talk About Themselves?

This is not a one-answer question. Why? Why it shouldn’t be? You cut them off and the problem is solved. Well, it’s not so easy. If you’re an empathic person, that friend actually took a part of your heart, regardless of their behavior. If you spent a lot of time together and shared many things (more their things than yours but ok), it’s not so easy to get them out of your life. But in the end, you see that there’s no other solution and you have to do it. But let’s go from the beginning.

First Try/Solution

Well, when you realize your talks are based on her problems, her preferences, her things, you try to take attention to yourself. The first reaction may be a „mirror game“. You think like: „If she talks only about herself, I will, too, so that she realizes how one feels when their friend behaves like an egocentric.“ I tried this method first. And did it work? No. Not really.

Second Try/Solution

She continued talking the same way, only about herself. I still wasn’t heard by her. Then I tried the opposite solution. Actually, „solution“, because I meant it might work but it also – didn’t work.

I tried to be quiet most of the time.

„Maybe she realizes something’s wrong if I’m so silent so she’ll ask me what’s going on. Do I have problems or something like that?“ – I was thinking.

So, can you guess – did she do it? Of course, she didn’t. She seemed like she didn’t even notice I’m silent most of the time, that my answers and comments are short and I seem faded. She just kept speaking, and talking, and speaking…

Third Try/Solution

Then I couldn’t hold on more. I told her. I said it like a joke because I hate these grave situations. I began with a joke and then continued with something like „do you aware we’re talking only about you?“

I was surprised that she actually wasn’t surprised by my comment. She said something like „Yeah, you see, really, we’re discussing my love life all the time, if we can call it ‘love life’“ – and laughed. Then she admitted that she’s very egocentric, that she could talk about herself all the time, and that she doesn’t have much interest in topics that are not related to her in some way.

She showed me that she’s aware of her narcissism but…

Did she do anything to get rid of such behavior?

No, she didn’t. And this is the main factor that determines your friendship with such a person. Someone in that situation concludes they have to change and give more attention to their friend talking, but someone, unfortunately, doesn’t do it but keeps behaving the same way.

Then it’s time to cut them off.

Please don’t make the same mistake and keep trying to make your conversations better. This can’t happen with such a person. I know, it’ll be hard to cut off all connections because she will continue to contact you. She will need you to listen, of course.

If you don’t want to be rude and cut off your friendship the indecent way, you just need to talk with her less and less. Reject your meetings, don’t answer the calls, and respond with a word or two on their messages.

I remember after all this happened, my ex-friend’s behavior changed even worse. Not only she didn’t listen to me but she interrupted my speech. I couldn’t say 3 sentences at once without her interruption. I said to her: „Wait, I’m not done with my story yet“, she answered „Oh sorry, keep talking“ and pretended to listen to me but I realized she doesn’t listen again because her laughing or other reactions were late.

Such a crappy feeling, believe me.

Final Thoughts

You don’t want your friendship with a narcissistic person comes to this level. Break it out in the beginning, when things just begin to go wrong. The conclusion is, it’s worth working on the friendship if your friend realizes they really speak too much about themself and change their behavior then. But if it continues, it’s better to give up and cut off all the connections. Among millions of people on the Earth, why let yourself feel bad spending time with a person who doesn’t appreciate you?

Questions Plus

What If She Talks Only About Work?

There’s a kind of egoistic friend who talks only about work but nothing else. I say it’s a kind of narcissism because they also talk only about topics they’re interested in or more often, they have problems with.

If your friend talks only about jobs, her/his current work, her/his boss, and so on, the only solution is to tell her kindly that it’s enough discussion about work for you and ask them if you could talk about something else.

There’s no other solution but being direct and making your current mood apparent. There’s no sense in expecting your friend will change their behavior if you don’t tell them.

It’s not easy to do it if you want to keep your relationship fine because there’s always a risk your friend will understand it like they are annoying to you or that you’re rude since you don’t want to listen to their problems. Yes, some people don’t see they’re overtalking about the same topic.

All Your Friend Talks About Is Guys?

The same is with girls who talk only about guys. This is obviously a part of their life they spend the most energy on and they think about it most of the time so it’s natural they will speak about it. These friends often don’t notice they talk only about guys so the first step is to show them that.

You can say something like: „Ok, can we talk about something else except for guys? Do you realize that today we didn’t say any sentence not including „boys“?

And laugh to make the situation less heavy. It’s always better to use „we“ than „you“ to prevent any possibility that your friend might feel guilty or insulted.

It’s also good to note to your friend that she shouldn’t invest so much energy in boys. Relationships are important but if it occupies your whole life, something wrong is happening. Talk with your friend about why having a boyfriend is so important for her and why she can’t live without a relationship. 

What If Friends Never Talks About Themselves?

Unlike narcist friends, there are also opposite characters – those that never talk about themselves. Why do they behave like that? Do they hide something? There might be multiple reasons.

The first one is that they lack self-esteem so they feel like their life is not so important that someone would listen to them. They listen to you but when you finish talking and ask them what about them, they usually say something like: „Well, nothing special.“

Then you may feel like you opened your soul to them by talking about your feelings, problems, and happening in your life, and now, they don’t feel the same trust in you so they’ll rather be silent.

But this is usually not the truth that stands behind such behavior. The truth is that they feel you asked „What about you?“ just because of obligation and that you don’t really care. Of course, it’s not true but they feel like it because of their lack of self-worth.

Another reason may be that they’re afraid of judgment by you and the group you could tell their story. It should also be related to low self-esteem but it shouldn’t be. The reason why they don’t want to speak about themselves is that they feel strange in comparison with you and other people so they think you wouldn’t understand them. It’s better to be silent than spend hours explaining.

The third reason is that they really don’t have anything to say about themselves. After your story that is full of adventures, their life seems boring in their eyes so they’d rather pass over their everyday occasions and just say: „Nothing important in my life.“