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.
If you are self-aware about this, then… tone it down. Like, 50% of the time you feel the urge to tell a related story, just don’t. It’s okay.
Oh for sure. I’ve already toned it down to like 80%. However, there are some people with which I realized I toned it down 100% because they become accusatory (“you’re trying to make it about yourself”) or insulting (“you have no self-awareness because your autistic”). They wont necessarily say it so explicitly, but they definitely do it in a passive-aggressive manner that means the same thing. Regardless, I’m in the process of slowly removing them from my life.