And they are! You are the protagonist of your own story, so am I and so is everyone else. Sometimes, the feeling of sonder comes along and tries to convince us otherwise. But there's nothing wrong with our perception of being the protagonist, just with our perception of what the role of the protagonist entails.

When watching a movie, for example, we have certain expectations when it comes to the protagonist. When there's a shootout scene, we don't expect a random bullet to just hit and kill them. When they're not in a scene, we still expect the events of that scene to be relevant for them at some point, and when they fall in love, we expect this plot point to lead somewhere, at least, instead of them being rejected and waiting the feeling out.

Life is not a movie. You knew that already, so this is not what I'm getting at. What I want you to see is, that these unrealistic expectations of protagonists can lead you to falsely assume that you are a side characters in someone else's story. You're not. You're the most important person your very own story. And that story can be as exciting or as boring or as crazy as you want.

Panel 1:
Parrot is giving their speech again
P: ... and then they kissed. That parrot set this whole thing up and Rasta-Pigeon even thinks it was their own decision. Can you believe this?
Panel 2:
This time their audience is H, who is sitting at their desk with a laptop.
H: While it was interesting to listen to your little ... presentation, ... wasn’t this meeting supposed to be about my thesis?
P: Yeah, because YOU never get distracted. How long have you been writing? A year? Even more?
H: Fair point.
Panel 3:
H: So, you think that parrot did all of this, just to get revenge because you rejected them? Did it ever occur to you that they might also just, you know, like each other?
P: Don’t be ridiculous.
Panel 4:
P: That explanation wouldn’t involve ME at all. Obviously, I’M the protagonist of this story! Besides, they could have anyone. Why choose Rasta-Pigeon of all people?! I think the revenge thing is much more likely.
Panel 5:
H: ... or you do actually like that parrot more than you want to admit and WISH they did it out of revenge, because that would mean that YOU are important enough for THEM, to come up with such an elaborate plan.
Panel 6:
P: Angry, but with tears in their eyes I ... that ... I read the first part of your thesis. There’s so many errors in there, you better rewrite it. Oh and that experiment you did? Well, your methodology is flawed, you need to repeat that. And don’t get me started on your figures ...