Vanity is a strange passion; rather than be out of a job it will brag of its vices.

The need to be noticed does not care what it is noticed for. When a person cannot be admired, they will settle for being remarkable, and that is how you get people boasting about how little they sleep, how badly they behaved, how much they drank. The content is irrelevant to the mechanism; attention is the thing being sought. It explains behaviour that otherwise makes no sense.

Listen to your own stories and ask what each one is for. If a tale of your own failings is being told with a certain relish, something is being collected. Try telling it flat, or not at all, and see what you miss.