Honestly I've only noticed this around last year even though im befriended with this friend since my senior years in high school. Maybe It's because i started to distance myself from her but this is not what this post is about. To get to the point:
I've taken note that my friends has a habit of always talking about herself whenever someone else shares a story/experience. In general this is pretty normal i think, because people tend to try to be relateable by doing so or just want to share their own similar experience. But from my observation she is really overdoing it as it happens almost every time.
A few examples: I told her that I will be visiting Japan soon and she got excited but then proceeded to talk about how she would want to come along with me if she could (even though i never invited her because i was planning this as my solo-traveling trip). Or when I was talking about a traumatic experience with her but she suddenly started to tell me about her own similar experience. It's not just with me i have also seen another friend tell her something and she would suddenly mention her own little story about whatever that other friend was talking about. Basically putting the spotlight onto herself.
I want to believe that she's doing all that without even realising as she's the type of person who just loves sharing stories but in my opinion there is a time and place to do so, right? Especially when im telling her about something exciting or show her a haul of things i bought (we did that a lot among ourselves) but she suddenly feels the need to tell me her random thoughts. What do i mean with that? Here a following scenario:
Me: Look i bought a body lotion that has a strawberry scent! I chose it because i love strawberries!
Friend: Oh wow thats nice! But honestly unpopular opinion but i kind of hate strawberries. I know lots of people like them but i just dont see it but cool that you bought it!
I don't know the right words to describe this but it's such a vibe killer when you show something exciting to someone and they kind of downplay it. Or am i overreacting? But this happened a lot of times where i would show something nice and she would give me her opinion on how she disliked xyz even though i didnt even ask for it. So at this point im just tired of doing it.
I keep thinking whether im reading too much into it or if its valid that i feel annoyed by these things. How do you guys deal with people like this? Im thinking on bringing this up the next time i see her as i feel like i should tell her about this instead of harboring bad feelings.