Vanity keeps persons in favor with themselves who are out of favor with all others.

Self-regard can keep a person comfortable long after everybody else has stepped back. Vanity works as insulation: it explains away every cold response, reinterprets avoidance as envy, and ensures the feedback never lands. The person is fine, which is exactly the problem, because nothing that would prompt a change ever gets through. It is a defence that costs you the information you most need.

If a pattern keeps repeating around you, consider the explanation that does not flatter you before the one that does. Ask one person who is willing to be blunt what they actually see. Then sit with the answer for a day before responding to it.