THERE’S not a day gone by that one does not come across an attention seeker! In the good old days, they were party animals and could be seen in most social events, today, many haunt WhatsApp groups, where either they are glaringly apparent, or they are subtly seeking.
The glaringly apparent jump on stage and try to steal the show, much to the discomfiture of the audience, the subtle seeker tries to impress with big words, laborious sentences and quite often weird grammar, which impresses those who don’t have much knowledge of the language.
A very famous attention seeker was the late President Theodore Roosevelt: It was said that Teddy certainly never shunned the limelight: When Roosevelt attended a wedding, he wanted to be the bride, and when he attended a funeral, he wanted to be the corpse! Well, beware, the attention seeker at work!
Most attention seekers will monopolize or attempt to monopolize conversation in intimate situations as often as they can, regardless of whether their outbursts are appropriate. He or she suffers from low self- esteem and a high opinion of himself or herself. The dichotomy of being prideful and insecure all at once is somewhat strange isn’t it?
But these people are unable to value themselves independent of others’ beliefs. In groups, they perform to give the appearance that they have no insecurities, no fears, no doubts, only the close-to-perfection words only they know and brandish, like cardboard swords in children’s plays, covered with silver foil, which they pretend is steel inside.
To be honest, I am not sure attention seekers can do anything about their sickness, but the rest of us can make sure they don’t get out of hand. For example, four people and an attention seeker are discussing whether Batman or Superman is the better superhero. Suddenly the attention seeker blurts out “A serpentem vectem appeareth outside the window!”
Cutting off the speaker. If the conversation changes to serpentem vectems which in ordinary English means snakes then the attention seeker has achieved his goal. But if instead someone in the group says “We’re talking about Batman not snakes!” Then Mr Attention Seeker could be put in his or her place and the conversation would not change because of an outburst.
I know for sure it won’t be easy doing this and you may be faced with rage in the form of curses and huge proclamations to God, from religious texts and scriptures or even long periods of sulking, but let’s stop letting adults behave as children just because they think their opinions or being the centre of attention is more important than the views of everyone else. When such people disrupt social discourse much in the manner of a toddler, they should be treated as such..!
—Email: bobsbanter@gmail.com
