Have you ever met a person with the uncanny ability to make every conversation about him/herself? You know the type. I was recently working with a new employee and we began chit-chatting about our lives. She asked me about my love life, which I thought was unusual for casual small talk. I opened my mouth and maybe got out two words before she interjected.
“Well I’ve been seeing my boyfriend for almost 5 years now. We’re really in love and tomorrow’s our anniversary.”
“Oh. Cool.”
“Yeah, he’s really great. Last year he sent me on a scavenger hunt. Have you ever done one of those?”
“Yeah one time I…”
“It ended with all these roses and he was waiting for me at the place we first met!”
“That’s adorable. My friend’s boyfriend once…”
“I wonder how he’s going to top that. I mean it was really romantic. He better not just give me a present or something, it’s got to be a grand gesture. I mean, 5 years is a huge deal, right?”
“…Right.”
Narcissistic listening is one of several listening problems people can have. It involves listening for the sole sake of waiting for an opportunity to talk about oneself or one’s own interests. In this case, my co-worker brought up my love life. While I thought she was curious about me, she was actually just directing the conversation to a topic she really wanted to talk about. Moreover, she really just wanted to talk about herself. Narcissistic listening can happen in other ways, too.
Another conversation that night happened between me and my manager. She was telling me about her sister who was attending graduate school in Egypt when the protests erupted this year.
Manager: “It was terrifying waiting to hear from her. We waited for days and days and when she finally called, she told us she’d gotten beaten up. Twice!”
Me: “Oh my gosh, I cannot believe that! Is she alright? I can’t even imagine…”
Coworker: “Hey, one time I did a project on Egypt in elementary school!”
I wish I was kidding about that. It kept happening, all night. She could not tolerate the conversation straying away from herself. In this case, she was listening to others’ conversations to look for opportunities to speak about herself some more. Now, this girl is an extreme case of a narcissistic listener. Most of us are not nearly as bad as she is, but we have all done this at some time or another. You can improve your listening by allowing conversations to flow away from you and topics of your own interest, and give positive feedback on those subjects.
How do you think narcissistic listening affects interpersonal relationships? What opinions do you form of people with habits like these?
