People who don’t ask questions

I’m struggling to see how. What would that look like if you met me for the first time at a friends house?

People can show interest in you without asking you a bunch of questions though, surely?

They'd just...talk to each other. Comment on the weather, someone's outfit, their hair, their dog, whatever.

I'm really surprised that so many people need to be asked questions in order to start a conversation with another person!

I don't think I'd be at all inclined to volunteer information to a person that didn't appear to show any sort of polite curiosity towards me. Likewise I wouldn't feel comfortable talking on and on to a person that wasn't responsive in some way. I'd rather record myself on my phone or talk to chatGPT honestly. Human conversation needs reciprocity for me.

They'd ask questions that weren't personal, and people would volunteer information they wanted to share.

How would anybody ever get to know anybody else if everyone in the world followed this rule ?

@ruethewhirl , Two or three years ago I started a new job, and two of us started the same day. One of the first thing we were asked by the manager was 'Do you have children?'.
I can see that it's an icebreaker, but my fellow new starter said 'No'. I was too busy thinking 'Well the manager does from the question but it's not relevant and knowing me I'll say something stupid like 'Just the one?'. '

If you have young children it can be relevant - job flexibilty etc, but it could be seen as intrusive.

I find this more and more - don't know if it's a post-Covid thing or a middle-aged thing but I find myself increasingly in situations where I'm sitting opposite someone just droning on and on and on. I sometimes think to myself "why do they want to see me when they know literally nothing about me?" but I guess the answer is they like someone who just listens and gently nudges them to open up . It just doesn't occur to them to do me the same courtesy!

It’s extremely ignorant.
The universe is all about them.

I find it rude and obnoxious when people don't ask any questions in return - ESPECIALLY when all they do is talk about the themselves. I work with a woman like that and she also ONLY asks the odd question so she can turn it around and make it all about herself.

I remember, years ago, a now dear-departed family friend commented of a man we'd spent a three-hour lunch with who did nothing but talk about himself: as we drove away, she sat in the back of the car, waving at him like the queen and commented drily; "That man knows fuck all about any of us".

Not to mention the grilling of people who don't have children.

Quite, and this is the flipside - quite often when people do ask questions, they ask overly personal/intrusive ones.

Good. People do ask things like 'How on earth can you afford your mortgage?' and 'Are you going to have another child?' though.

@Nellodee mine are exactly the same as is a colleague, feel I know way too much about people I will never meet!
However I am probably ND so am quite happy to bend people's ears about random stuff or listen to ND friend talk about streetlighting. I will ask how your family are and probably your cat/ guinea pig / donkey but I won't ask about work / your kids!

This. Sorry OP but it seems like they're not interested in anything more than a superficial relationship.

We recently hosted one of my SILs (my least favourite 😂) for a week. About an hour before she left she asked me what I did for a living. I've been with her brother for almost 25 years and we'd just spent a whole week together. She's just not remotely interested.

Indeed. You find it bizarre that people don’t ask questions, I find it equally bizarre that people need to be asked a set question in order to talk about something they like or enjoy 🤷‍♀️

But if I know someone well enough to sit in their house, I wouldn’t feel the need to go through all the boring “how was your weekend” bollocks - I’d just sit and chat with them and anything interesting would just come up in conversation.

I have a friend who can be pretty bad at asking questions, I know she’s actually interested in other people’s lives to some extent and sometimes she does ask questions, but other times she seems to get stuck on ‘broadcast’ and I can go a few weeks without her having asked a single thing.
She was brought up being taught asking questions was rude, so she tends to expand on all the things in her life and hope the other person reciprocates.
It often comes across as self absorbed, especially when, for example, an ill family member is waiting for important news, and instead of asking how they are and what the results were, she’ll send strings of messages about how her day was, what her child ate, what she wore today and even selfies of a new outfit. She’s a lovely person but doesn’t quite get interpersonal skills right all the time.

I would just start talking “apropos of nothing” because I don’t need to be prompted in order to talk about things I like and enjoy.

However as I’m not remotely interested in what someone did at work yesterday or the fact that they went to a museum at the weekend, it wouldn’t occur to me to ask - of course if they brought it up, I would listen and be polite, but I’m not going to encourage a conversation about a topic I find dull and pointless.

I dont really ask questions beyond how's it going, etc or unless they are necessary.
Conversation with friends/partner tends to flow without a course needing to be set.

Well no, of course they don’t identify as that! Doesn’t mean we aren’t though