Self-psychoanalysis
I learnt something about myself yesterday. If I call a friend up coz I need to talk to someone, or need to rant, I always start the conversation by asking how they are. I need to feel that I'm not being selfish and making everything about me, you see.
Because the friends whom I call are close enough to me that we can be honest with each other, if they are having a bad day themselves, they will proceed to tell me about it. Whereby I will listen and commiserate -- and, at the end, when they remember to ask me why I called in the first place, I'll just say something like, "Oh, just called to chat" or "Just called to see how you are". In short, this means I end up not telling them my own story.
This is because I figure they're already having a hard enough time of their own, and don't need to have further stuff dumped on them. When you've just tried to cheer somebody up or comfort them, you don't in the next minute want to pour buckets of cold water on them, now do you?
I also realised that if my friend says she's busy, I apologise and tell her to go back to whatever she was doing before my call interrupted her. I don't even so much as intimate that I called because I needed to talk to someone. In fact, I make myself sound cheerful and unconcerned, so that she won't guess and have to take time out from her busyness for me.
What all this says about me, I have no idea. In the end I suppress my own needs or unhappiness and then deal with it on my own because I don't want to bother anyone or cause anyone to put themselves out on my behalf. It's almost as if I'm afraid to bother people. I dunno.