Conversational Narcissism

There are certain characteristics in a personality that are so subtle they cannot be clearly categorized. The other night I was complimented about a pasta side-dish I created earlier that day, and another person changed the subject to about how she makes pasta from scratch.

There is another individual who will absolutely always have to have the last say in EVERY EXCHANGE that happens in a group. There is nothing he doesn't know at least something about, and he will change the context of the discussion to something completely different in order to get eyes on himself.

At first I dismissed it, criticizing myself for making a big deal about it, but this kind of toxicity is insidious and I'm often left exhausted at the end of the day. It's so subtle I didn't know what to call it until I typed in the Google search box "taking over a conversation and making it about themselves". What popped up was "Conversational Narcissism."

• Art of Manliness: How to Avoid Conversational Narcissism (01/24/2020)
• Hack Spirit: Conversational narcissism: 5 signs and what you can do about it (09/11/2019)
• NBC News: How to tell if you're a 'conversational narcissist' (12/04/2017)
• term: "Shift Response" 
• Insider: Narcissists use a subtle conversation tactic to make everything about them, and you may not notice it until its driving you crazy (07/30/2019)

Who should you believe?

How do you trust what people tell you every day? It's easy. You only trust them if they believe in God because of course then it follows that they believe in Hell too, and if they lie to you they will suffer an eternity in a lake of fire. You should believe everyone who proclaims they have faith in their religion because there will always be some sort of punishment following any infraction or violation of their own rules. This is one of many things that religions around the world have in common, rules for behavior.

But what about science and academics? Those "intellectuals" who often proclaim Atheism, Agnosticism or some other form of not believing or having any faith? How would you know if they were telling you the truth about anything? Should you believe their "science?"

Science is grounded in the real world. First someone has to look at a situation and come up with a hypothesis about it. Then, to see if they can change the outcome or mitigate a problem caused by the situation, scientists will experiment with the variable factors within the situation until they come up with a solution. If the experiment fails, they document the outcome so that nobody repeats the failed experiment. (How many times have you prayed for something that still didn't go your way?)

If an experiment is a success, the scientists will publish the results for peer review. Their peers will recreate the experiment and based on the success of those experiments, the peer review will determine that the solution arrived at for the situation is the correct course of action.

If science is faked, it will be outed by the peers and exposed as a fraud and discredited.

Now back to the faithful. How many people do you know openly proclaim that they have faith, but don't really adhere to all of the rules of the faith to which they allegedly subscribe?

How many of them look like they're faking it? It's easy for people who don't really believe in God to say they do because they don't have the fear of going to Hell in their souls. How do you know who to believe?