by Maria C Collins

Created on: May 08, 2009   Last Updated: September 19, 2010

One should feel sorry for people, who need to brag about themselves. However, that does not mean that they are not intensely irritating.

Everyone has to sell themselves these days; one sees it on the television programme "The Apprentice", usually as the programme continues most of the candidates cannot, in reality, do what they have previously said they are capable of doing. Careers advice, these days, is to sell yourself at job interviews, it is an encouragement to boast and exaggerate, fib, or even lie about your attributes and capabilities. A Curriculum Vitae, (or resume) should tell an experienced and competent interviewer all that he or she needs to know. The sell yourself advice is an American export and inappropriate in English workplaces.

People who boast all the time are usually insecure, or ill-at-ease, amongst their peers. Perhaps they feel that, in any true comparison, they may be at a disadvantage. Anything you say about what you have done, seen or bought they will have been somewhere better, seen something better or bought something better, at a bargain price.

Empty vessels make the most noise, and most braggarts have very little to boast about when it actually comes down to brass tacks. Most braggarts are stupid because, they are so busy talking about themselves that, they never close their mouths in order to listen and learn.

People who boast all the time are very selfish and self-absorbed. They take the floor in social situations and exclude those who may well have something much more interesting to say. They are so busy relating to themselves, they have no time to relate to others, so there is no two-way flow of conversation or relationship.

Although, occasionally, some people who boast all the time are interesting, most are very boring because they are only happy when they are the topic and focus of conversation. Most people who boast all the time wear a mask of their own making. They never let you know the person they really are. If they stopped boasting long enough to let the real person behind the mask emerge, there might be a really pleasant, amiable and likable person under there.

People, who brag all the time, are trying to prevent anyone seeing behind the mask that they wear. They are sad, unhappy people, but that does not prevent them from being intensely irritating to everyone they come into contact with. Braggarts tend to exaggerate, which many people see as deceit, and most people do not like lies.

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