“Too self-absorbed” is taking to mean your condition clearly manifests itself to others; that you are either completely indifferent to them, or you do and say things that offend them. No one gets really hurt. What you say or do are well within your rights being the center of the universe, what was or will ever be.
It’s a little rude. It’s no fun having a conversation with someone who doesn’t listen, but only wants to talk. Why should we listen to them if they won’t take turns and listen to us?
A normal level of self-importance is…normal. An excessive level spoils the fun, not only for everyone else, but, ultimately, for the self-absorbed person too. He won’t have many friends, he won’t get the best service in stores, he won’t be able to attract and keep a lover, and he’ll probably be lousy at his job.
Work and play well with others: it’s not just for kindergarten!
At some point in adulthood (for most people) that stops being true.
Like Trinopus said, no one likes rude and selfish people.
the_diego, you cribbed that from the hipster manual, eh?
They suck in bed.
Or wait a minute… they don’t suck in bed?
Gah! What I trying to say is; self absorbed people make for lousy sex partners.
OP, why exactly are you interacting with them at all?
The only thing that’s ‘wrong’ with being completely selfish is that it harms your relationships with other people. You can be as self-absorbed as you want, but you have to learn to hide it if you want to be able to get what you want from other people, and succeed in life generally. It’s impossible to have power in this world without people skills.
No one wants to trust, get close to, or do anything for someone they know doesn’t care at all about another person’s needs or desires and will throw them under the bus if they get in the way of their self-interested goals.
Just an example: a grunt who goes about not giving a damn about anything qualifies as being SA. NGAD is arguably an admirable trait in a man. I for example, happen to give a damn about a lot of things but sometimes I wish I didn’t.
A grunt that cares about nothing, including himself is not SA. I would think that is a whole other subject.
Grunts have a clear line of Us and Them and the hotter things get the less leeway the Thems get.
I am not saying geunts are immune from being Self Absorbed but grunts work within units and have to work together. A self absorbed grunt won’t have many friends if they don’t care about the mission or Brothers.
A self absorbed person is, sooner or later, going to piss others off and not know it, and thus be unable to do anything about it. Plus, sometimes your life will suck. And being self absorbed means you will be completely focused on that. You won’t be able to see the broader world and realize that life isn’t so bad.
Ultimately, the question goes down to pure selfishness, and why it’s a dumb idea. The entire point of living in a society is that we are better off than on our own. If you act as if you are on your own, no one has any reason to help you out. You aren’t contributing to society, so society has no reason to contribute to you.
Ultimately, a purely self-absorbed person would have no problem killing someone who pissed them off. It makes their life better, so why shouldn’t they do it? Sure, there are laws that would punish you, but those only exist because someone was able to look beyond themselves and see the broader world and got together with others. They appealed to others self-interest, not just their own, and accomplished something greater than themselves. It’s only because of thinking of others that we can deal with the totally self absorbed.
The same goes for pretty much any time people got together and accomplished something of their own free will. You have to be able to think about the well-being of others to be able to convince them that something is in their best interests.
The main problem with being self absorbed is that a lot of research indicates that self absorption is one of the primary indicators of unhappiness.