One of my friends called me self-absorbed yesterday. She was joking, but she is actually right. It's a flaw I've been trying to correct for many years now but, ironically, the more effort I put into reducing it, the more self-absorbed I feel I'm being. It's probably something to do with all the additional time spent analysing my own thought processes and behaviours rather than thinking of other people and things.
I tend to blame my high anxiety levels for my apparent preoccupation with my own affairs. My brain constantly seethes with worry about things I've done wrong, things I'm currently doing wrong, things that may go wrong in the future, and the desire to logicise this permanent tangle of stress and confusion leads me to blurt it all out at any given opportunity; not because I think that the person I'm talking to is interested, but because I just need to get it out of my head before it drives me mad. That, and my lack of skill in the fine art of small talk, means that I either end up talking about myself or asking endless questions of people in a clumsy attempt to make conversation. Neither of which is particularly socially agreeable.
And, of course, while I'm so busy upsetting myself about all this, all those little considerate things that make one easier to be around just never occur to me. I'm quite capable of walking past a smiling acquaintance without seeing them, or of putting something in the bin and not even noticing that it's full. I'm sure I must be an absolute nightmare to be around most of the time, and I keep hoping that one day my self-absorbtion will metamorphose into self-awareness and, by extension, other-awareness. It's probably too late now to hope that this transformation will magically occur when I grow up. Maybe there's a course I could take?
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