I have a friend who doesn't really seem to engage with the things I talk about. They will usually just say: OMG that's interesting! or some variation, but the actual content isn't engaged with. I find a lot of conversations feel flat or else difficult because of this, but I don't know what to do about it. It isn't that we don't have common interests either; this still happens regardless of whether it's a shared interest or not. I have often over the years of friendship we've shared felt almost like these conversations are a bit one-sided, and that can feel a little lonely or else frustrating.
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speaking from the perspective of your friend, I struggle with this myself. I also struggle with an articulation beyond non-secuquitors (“wow! That’s interesting”) or something similar.
For me, i have terrible adhd and in those moments that I say stuff like that I can’t think of anything to add because it’s like my brain isn’t working. Like it’s on vacation.
Therefore it is very hard to keep a conversation flowing and difficult to do the “yes, and”.
Sometimes with this kind of friend, it helps to do things with them instead of talking to them, so the conversation is less of the focus of the interaction. Hiking, going to a show, going to a county fair or something. Yes there’s still talk involved, but there are activities to engage in as well. Sometimes these types of friends are really good at, for example, always remembering to bring water and sunscreen on the hike, and that’s the way that they show care.
Well a conversation requires 2 people and a lot of people lack the skills to keep things going. So if you’ve already tried things like asking open ended questions or directly asking what their opinion is on things, there’s not much you can do. You can’t really teach someone how to have a conversation with a back and forth that flows, a lot of people don’t even realize there’s an issue with how they converse.
When I run into these people, and I generally like them, I just consider them outer circle friends. Either they aren’t willing to go deeper in convos with me, or lack the capacity and that’s fine. I just don’t like that dynamic for closer friendships.
ask more specific questions or say more specific statements if all they say is omg thats interesting then they can’t use omg that’s interesting twice
We live in an age where people are very sensitive as to what is being said for fear of not insulting someone. It really makes communications so difficult but maybe they are being cautious??? Words are construed and manipulated until there is a conflict.
Find new friends
This is hard, and makes me wonder if they’re on the spectrum. I might do activities with this person, rather than try to go deep. I saw people mention ADHD as a possible reason, but my ADHD friends have the opposite challenge (saying all the things coming to mind rather than generic non-responses). It depends how important this friendships is to you
To kind of vouch for the friend, I also do this, but I have ADHD and I usually do it because I am actively trying to not infodump a story about myself again in an attempt to show that I can relate to what is being said to me.
I don’t see the same energy back menas it times to leave because the seed will not grow, I tried 1 year with one my ”friend” it was not even small talk but me asking questions like an interview or ending up like pulling teeth, she was nice and not a bad person just we didn’t have common interests or personality types
Hmm. Do you have any tips you’d give them if you could? I’ve definitely been this friend before. It’s really hard. I’d be genuinely super interested and wanting to connect, but just couldn’t for the life of me think of what to ask next.
If your friend is someone who takes feedback well, maybe you could find a way to bring it up to them. You could ask them if they’ve ever struggled to know what to say to people or to know how to keep conversations going. If they say yes, you could go the more subtle route of pretending like you struggle too and talking about what’s “helped” you, or you could be more explicit and just say gently that you’d noticed that and wondered if they wanted to talk about how to approach fixing it.
I would’ve really appreciated that kind of (nice, gentle) feedback from my friends. In my case, I think a lot of what held me back was social anxiety. It just took up so much brain space that I wasn’t able to give the right kind of attention to what my friend was saying.
People can only meet you as deeply as they’ve met themselves.
I recommend finding some people to have those types of conversations with and to find other things to do with these people (like someone else said, do something more activity focused). Some people don’t enjoy deeper conversations for various reasons and there isn’t really any changing that.
I’ll bet if we asked *them*, they’d say “how do I keep my friend from steamrolling every conversation? I try to show polite interest, but they just *keep going*, no matter what I do. I can’t get a word in edgewise!”
Communication goes *both* ways. If they don’t engage with the kind of conversations you want to have, don’t try to *force* it.
I’m definitely this friend and I’m sorry, it’s not that I don’t care it’s just that I’m a little stupid tbh 😭
Have you asked for their opinion or thoughts when you have these conversations?