People who don’t ask questions

so ask about something you are interested in then! Do you literally not talk to your partner, kids, colleagues? There's a whole world of things to discuss. Or would you literally rather sit in silence in someone's house for several days, when they've been gracious enough to host you. Because that's not awkward or rude at all!

I swear this place is "peopled" by AI robots sometimes, who seem to be under the impression that questions are broken down into 2 categories
"safe = impersonal but boring."
or
"rude and intrusive."

Whereas anyone with the slightest skill at personal interaction would be able to dredge up at least a handful of topics that don't come under either but a marvellous third option "normal human conversation."

I can really relate to this, I find social situations really hard, and I try to ask questions as that's what I've been advised to do, but it's really hard unless I plan ahead.

And sometimes they ask me the questions was planning, then I don't know what to do - it feels awkward to just ask the same thing?!

Well I think it is in his world. But to me that is not how conversation works. I do update him if there’s big news that he wouldn’t know to ask about. But he literally never asks anything. My mum on the other hand (they are not together) knows what’s going on in our lives, texts me to ask ‘how did the school show go/is the dc’s cold better/ do you have a good recipe for cheese scones’ etc etc! My dad has no relationships with the rest of his family, my mum is run off her feet with family and people who want to spend time with her.

He is expecting me to just furnish him with information, with zero effort or demonstrating of caring on his part. It’s not a relationship in my view, or not one where I feel valued. I keep it going more for the sake of my kids.

Quite the opposite. It's rude not to. How else do you have a conversation?! The questions don't have to be 'personal' (e.g.salary/politics/sex) but questions do show an interest in the other person and it's bad manners not to engage/ask questions back. To me it shows a big lack of social skills

There is a Here We Go episode about this exact thing - very funny. I think it’s “Cherry’s Wedding Dress”.

I am quite a quiet person and not a massive talker but even I can manage to have a conversation and know that you start off with the small talk questions and then (as another poster said) the conversation flows into something more organic and hopefully interesting to us both.

I went to evening college for a couple of years and there was a woman there who never asked a question or started a conversation. We both arrived at the same time due to our trains and would have about 20 mins before the rest of our group arrived. It was always me saying how are you? How was your week? Busy at work? How was your trip to Paris, did you like it etc? She would answer quite happily and then it was like she would zip her mouth up until I asked something else. I tried saying nothing except a cheery hello but then we just sat in uncomfortable silence for 20 mins. I started thinking maybe she wants me to leave her alone so I started sitting in different places so she could pretend not to see me but she always came to find me and seemed pleased to see me. It was just so strange and mentally exhausting.

Agree. IMO it’s SO rude to let someone carry the conversation and show zero interest in finding out anything about them… I have an old ‘friend’ who knows barely anything about my current life because she just never asks anything.

It's rude to ask how much money people make or how much their house is worth or how often they have sex - those are 'personal' questions about things that are generally private.

It's not rude to ask what a person's job is these days, what subjects kids like at school/are doing or GCSEs, where they're going on holiday this year etc. That's just showing an interest in people. I'm the first to say I can be bad at remembering to do this, but I do try to be aware.

I can fall into the non asker category a bit, I think it's because when I was little I used to ask SO many questions I got told off for it and told it was rude, so I tend to err on the side of not asking rather than upset/offend people. I do ramble on though so I don't leave people to carry the conversation - I tend to get on vv well with people who either ask a lot of questions themselves or other people who have the communication style of rambling/oversharing and sometimes interrupting in excitement. TBH the people I feel most comfortable with to tend to be other people who do this, we do it to each other and don't mind at all.

I have tried to consciously swap these tendencies though over the last couple of years when I meet new people. I taught English for a while abroad and took over a v small class from another teacher and she had a brilliant tactic to get the students comfortable talking, and formulating grammatically correct questions which was that she would start them off and they would go around the circle and each student would have to think up 1-2 questions to ask the others about what they had said. So I adopted this tactic in conversation, plus I've started to ask the questions that I held back for worry they might be rude or intrusive and so far, nobody seems to have taken them that way, and they led to some REALLY interesting conversations, so I think I was overcorrecting the rule.

OK. I hear you and you're obviously telling the truth. I just don't understand.

I guess my suggestion to you is .....if you love them so much, try harder to show an irt interest!

Being interested in other people, asking appropriate questions and having empathy for their situations is human. It is the basis of friendship and all types of relationships. People who can't or won't engage risk being regarded as dull, boring and/or lacking in personality. I've met one or two.

Honestly, this is it.

I’m not one for asking questions as I generally don’t care all that much about the minutiae of other people’s lives, jobs and children and find it bizarre that people care so much about mine.

I agree, just send one back. You don’t need to be asked, just do it.

yes but the point is without a question or make some sort of effort to get the conversation started it will never develop into enough of one to flow!

I feel like people are being deliberately obtuse. Obviously OP doesn't expect a sequence of Jeremy Paxton style intense interview questions lobbed at her. Nor does she want intrusive, intimate queries. Just a normal back and forth conversation with both parties contributing!

.....Isn't him sending you a bulletin literally him spontaneously opening a conversation by thinking of you, sharing his news and thus indicate that he'd like something similar back in response, though? Because conversations are reciprocal, so he is expecting you to match his energy with your own news?
If something had happened in your lives and he didn't know about it and therefore didn't know to ask about it, would you just not ever tell him about it?

I am all for having conversations, and of course asking questions - but keep the general

but asking about health etc IS really rude. If they want to tell you, they will.

YANBU - I find this odd and rude. How can you build a relationship with someone who doesn’t seem to show even the slightest bit of interest. I find it especially odd when it’s someone who has gone out of their way to spend time with you. I feel like saying, if you didn’t want to talk to me, why are you here? And however much I back peddle to the safest of safe topics, I can’t seem to provoke a normal conversation so it intends up either feeling like an integration or awkward silence.

I definitely think it’s rude to ask no questions at all, but equally I feel like some people think conversation is a tennis match where every question must be asked back and nothing can be volunteered unless it’s been elicited from them. My sis is a bit like this - she constantly says nobody asks her anything about herself, but equally she never just chats and volunteers anything so I think people get tired of the coyness.

I doubt OP expects or indeed wants them asking her "how much do you weigh?" "What's your salary?" "What's your view on pubic maintenance?" or "How do you think you're going to vote in the next election?"

More along the lines of "What did you do for Christmas?" "Where are you thinking of going on holiday this year?" "Did you see X in the cinema?" "Who do you think is going to win the Traitors?" "This restaurant/pub/park is lovely, do you come here often?" "What's your favourite subject in school?" (obvs to the DC not OP).

Yes you sound great at small talk. I’m crap at it. Much more interested in people’s lives (not necessarily highly personal things) just about their jobs, children, holidays, interests that kind of thing. I don’t think I’d ever start a conversation about seasoning a cast iron pan.

I’m a bit jealous of you TBH. I think it’s maybe because my family never really had those kind of conversations and people largely talked about themselves.

Having said that I do think people who never ask you about yourself can come across as a bit self absorbed.

It’s not nosey! It’s called being interested in other people

There are two types of non-questioners.

One are the silent type who look bored and reply to your own questions with one word answers.

The others are the monologuers who you can spend a couple of hours with, and they impart the minutiae of every single day since you last spoke to them without drawing breath. Only after they leave do you realise they haven’t asked a single thing about you. You’re not really a friend, you’re more an audience.

I find questions, especially lots of polite questions, a boring way to have conversation 😁 it is ok for the first few minutes but then the conversation should just flow without boring things like “how is your job going?” 😁😅

My father was autistic ( never diagnosed but I taught autistic children for 20 years and over the years it slowly dawned on me). I think both my brothers are on the spectrum. Neither engage with people socially. I was the oldest child, a girl and the expectations of me were totally different. It took me until I went to do my degree to realise that my family was a bit odd and that there were more 'open' , relaxed, friendly ways to live. My father was always absolutely horrified if he saw someone in the distance who he sort of knew but couldn't remember the name of. My childhood consisted of being pushed very quickly into M and S in Hereford to avoid whoever it was. Neither brother married until their late 40s and both married equally odd women.