The Me Monster

So here’s another compulsive thing that’s wrong with guys (ie. ME). One-upmanship is virtually irresistible. Get a group of guys together and the storytelling ensues (see video).
Scars are shown until we’ve established whose injury was most severe. Brian Regan calls it the “Me monster.” In academic jargon, this is called a “pissing contest.”

I suffer from this affliction along with its companions: interrupting people and finishing people’s sentences. Let me give you a “me monster” example. See if you can think of any of your own.

A friend of mine dropped a mike stand on his toe. It was bad. His toe swelled and turned purple. The pressure was so painful he went to doctor friend’s house and had him perform a nasty, bloody little in-home surgery to relieve the pain (I’ll spare details).
So, he was telling this story over lunch one day when he fatally described the incident like this: “It was like I dropped a barbell plate on my toe.” I’m sure he regrets this line.

Why? Good description. A mike stand has a heavy metal disc at the base to keep it from falling over. So what? WELL! Let me tell you!!

Me: (Spoken at slightly louder than he was speaking I’m sure) “I DID drop a barbell plate on my toes!! A 25 pound plate! And I was barefoot and standing on a concrete floor!” (This is also a good one-upmanship story for ANY story about being an idiot)

I watched the wind get sucked out of my friend. His pain and his story had just been invalidated and reduced. For that matter, his basic value as a person who should simply be LISTENED TO when sharing an interesting response to: “How was your weekend?” was nullified by my “better story.”

As Regan points out, the basic message is: I’m better than you. More important, adventurous, successful, stupid… Whatever is getting the attention right now?
I am more of that.

Some people are very gifted story-tellers. People count on them for a good story. Family stories can be important to share. Swapping stories can actually be a fun male-bonding experience. But the compulsion to run over someone with a better story? To not even allow a moment of respect for someone else’s story? To turn ANY sharing of personal information into an opportunity to tell a story about myself? That’s kind of sick and ugly and I want to become secure enough and interested enough in other people to be a listener instead of a “me monster.” I want to stop.

This weekend my family and I walked about 2 miles to Harrisburg’s City Island. There’s a cool little playground there that the kids like and it’s beautiful along the river.
When we got there, Beth and I were talking briefly with a mom who was there with little kids too. She mentioned she lived in Harrisburg and I asked where.
She mentioned a neighborhood slightly closer to City Island than ours and added (almost fatally) “so we rode our bikes.”

I told her what neighborhood we lived in and… just…barely…prevented myself…from saying, “So we WALKED here!”

Yeah! I almost one-upped a mom with two little kids that I’d never met before!

Here’s how it would’ve gone down:
“Oh, you biked did you! Must’ve been nice to have some wheels! Pretty easy bike ride isn’t it! You think you’re green, or economical or healthy or something?!
(You could see the chip on her shoulder a mile away. She definitely said that to prove something). You judging me? Assuming I drove here in a CAR!! DON’T!!!
Cause we WALKED here! We do it ALL THE TIME!!

That mom narrowly escaped a serious drubbing.

God have mercy…