I myself am introverted and grew up shy. I find myself falling into the listener role for a lot of my friendships and even random people where people would just yap and go on a monologue for a while. Even my mom and my brother would do this with me. Both my parents are somewhat narcissistic as well, I don’t know if has anything to do with it.
I’ve had someone once monologue at me for 1.5 hrs straight and I think I commented once. New friends I made open up and told me things they never told anyone else. When people share, they would just keep sharing.
I am a good listener and I practice being empathetic as a trait, and I feel I notice this with my interactions, but people don’t do the same for me.
For one of my friends, I open up about close family passing away recently, and they shift the convo back to themself very quickly and later ‘don’t remember’ anything important I said. I ask questions, but people don’t ask questions back. I genuinely am curious about others, and want to know everything about them, but they don’t feel the same way about me.
What hurts me the most is I notice they are not like this with other people, where I feel like they come to me to emotionally dump. I find that I often keep being expected to listen where people assume it’s okay if they monologue for a long time.
Within these people I meet and friendship, I do try to share about myself even if they don’t ask. I don’t think I’m a boring person. I like trying new experiences. I’ve travelled to Italy recently, I tried puppy yoga recently and going to try rock climbing soon, I read a lot in different genres and have a lot to share. But it’s when they half-listen, don’t ask questions back, or even bring the conversation back to themself, I get the vibe they don’t want to listen and don’t care.
I want to be listened to as well. I want to share. I want others to be curious about me without me having to ask them to be.
Any tips?