Alright, what’s this obsession about being one-up all the time? Gave away too much in the first line? Read on.
This question primarily hit me during couple of weddings recently. First one was at a wedding reception of a dear friend (To help preserve the identity of my friend, lets just call him Sri.) from Amreeka where he bumped into a family friend. An old uncle who probably haven’t spoken to him ever. The uncle asks Sri where he stays in Amreeka. “The Bay area uncle”. This was followed by a monologue about his nephew who sold his company to Dell in California and went to on to become…Well, whatever the eff.
Wedding two. At a friend’s sister’s wedding, Mr Nanu was the official photographer. While on the job, an elderly gentleman decided to strike a conversation. “Are you a professional photographer?” “No no. Just a hobby and decided to help my friend, that’s all”. And this followed – “My daughter quit her job at an MNC and decided to pursue her dream of becoming a photographer…” I had quickly zoned out when this started. After about 4 minutes of her achievements and awards she has won, I excused myself to the boring hobby I was pursuing.
While both the examples above were with people whom one had never met, I see this happening time and again with people in general. Why is it such a big deal to be one up all the friggin time? I mean there are times when I think even if I say “I went to the moon” I’d be slapped with a reply that might start off as “That’s nothing…”
To the one million followers of my blog (much more than yours ok), have you been in situations like these as well? What do you do when you are in one?
For me, it’s as simple as an on-off switch these days.
