Earlier this morning as they were playing Take A Whuppin’ or Else Give One, (their patented non-physical version), when the father had the son in a triple reverse, thalamic headlock, he whispered in his ear: “Two questions for you my boy: why do men like to hear themselves talked about? and why do they believe that others are interested in what they think?”
He increased the pressure, and continued: “Life makes all creatures curious as a survival technique, and it serves a man well when it motivates him to investigate a strange noise he hears in his house at night, but tell me this, what useful purpose is being fulfilled by a man’s curiosity regarding what other people have to say about him – and all men are, make no mistake about it. You ask any normal human on this planet if they would like to know what so-and-so person said about them, and they will unfailingly be most anxious to hear it detailed.
Why? Why do people like to hear themselves talked about? An ordinary man would likely say that it is because people are vain, but if you ask him to define, ‘vain,’ he will say it means that you like to hear yourself talked about.” The elder maintained the hold as he rolled the boy onto his side.
“For illustrative limning I could espouse a more potentially insightful response to the question, and propose that men want to hear what other people think about them as a means of collecting information on potential future adversaries. Thus, it serves survival needs, which is another one of those comments that sounds explanatory, and which even professionals in the psychological arts would agree to, but which even a two second survey of what you already know about life, refutes. The gossip people solicit to hear about themselves never serves any such useful end; the whole, insightful-sounding idea is silly.
So, men are made instinctively curious so as to better react profitably to anything new in their physical environment, but why are they curious about what other people have to say about them when, as a rule, it serves no survival purpose?”
J.