Dear Eric: I have a close friend of more than 40 years who lives in a very large and expensive city. Whenever I travel there, I will often ask if my wife and I can stay with her. She is acquainted with a number of our friends who live in this city but never sees them unless I come to town, nor do they reach out to her if I’m not there. However, when we are there and she joins us, she tends to commandeer the conversation, talking primarily about herself and her relatives, which is off-putting to me and to our friends.