Unintentional bitch is now online.

So for some crazy reason me and A started talking about narcissism the other night because I read the back of a book on it while scanning stuff at work, and I found this little gem off wikipedia

Conversational narcissism is a term used by sociologist Charles Derber in his book "The Pursuit of Attention: Power and Ego in Everyday Life".
Derber observed that the social support system in America is relatively weak, and this leads people to compete mightily for attention. In social situations, they tend to steer the conversation away from others and toward themselves. "Conversational narcissism is the key manifestation of the dominant attention-getting psychology in America," he wrote. "It occurs in informal conversations among friends, family and coworkers. The profusion of popular literature about listening and the etiquette of managing those who talk constantly about themselves suggests its pervasiveness in everyday life..."
What Derber describes as "conversational narcissism" often occurs subtly rather than overtly, because even the dim-witted among us know that it's rude not to show interest in others, and prudent to avoid being judged an egotist.

Derber distinguishes the "shift-response" from the "support-response".

I unfortunately have to stop right now and admit that I am guilty of this completely.  I even realize sometimes when I do it in conversation and have to redirect a conversation for a group so that I give the person I shifted away from the floor again.  It's something that I want to work on in myself, because I want people to realize that I [b]do[/b] listen to them and I believe it's an important active listening skill to communicate interest and support.

However, I notice A LOT of people do this.  For me, I know that I like to share stories and anecdotes to make points in casual conversation because they are more interesting than facts and usually still add weight to whatever I am trying to express.  Usually I find that my stories come up when they do add something, but my problem is that I can be long-winded in my expression and if I'm not careful, I can redirect an entire table of people to another topic without even meaning to do so. This is why I don't normally find myself getting upset when it happens to me, although sometimes I may be disappointed if the "moment" for my comment or interjection has passed and it has to go unrehearsed 15 times in my head.  *shrug*  Oh well, being more aware of how to be less of an unintentional bitch is always positive.