im in this weird place where I’ve gotten good at asking questions but when the person answers my mind goes blank, i can’t seem to articulate something that leads to an actual conversation so then ill keep asking more and more questions and then i feel as if im interrogating them.
the other day i had someone talk about a situation they were in (their sister had surgery and she was in a pretty bad state), i came up with lots of questions; enquiring about how their family was dealing with it, the reason why she had the surgery, how have they been managing with the whole thing etc. the problem is, it came down to a point where i felt that i was interviewing this person because i was only asking questions, i had no comments or anything.
eventually, when i ran out of things to ask there was this awkward silence between us where i could feel the other person was anticipating for me to say something besides these questions but i couldn’t, my mind had completely gone blank.
although i can understand it’s hard to talk to someone about a difficult and emotional situation they’re in, i can’t help but do this in casual conversations with other people. i feel like im not showing any kind of personality or perspective, if i try to fill the gaps in between questions i feel it comes off as not genuine since im only doing that to ease the awkwardness.
are my questions straight up not that good? what can i do to improve? is that just how conversations are and im overblowing the whole thing?