I had a very very difficult relationship with my mother who was supremely self-centred. She was hilariously self-centred. She did not really take interest in anything that didn't immediately affect her.
If I'm pushed I'd also have to admit I don't like people with allergies. They just annoy me. There seems to be something far too self-centred about it. 'No thanks I'm allergic.' Why not just say 'No thanks'? I wasn't asking for your medical history I was just passing around the nuts. Trying to be friendly that's all.
The year 2008 was a reminder to those who had forgotten that there is such a thing as history and that the cycle of famine and feast in commerce first identified in antiquity and well understood in the Middle Ages was not suddenly abolished in modern times.