To be sick of asking all the questions?

[chocolateandcash]

I love my friends, I really do but I feel like I am always the one asking all the questions. I guess I am quite a chatty person once I am comfortable with someone and I was told from a very young age that I am very inquisitive. So I do ask my friends many questions about themselves, their lives, their past, their family because I am genuinely interested. But I just feel like no one asks me about my life or my past or myself and it's starting to wear me down a bit. It's like no one is interested.

Is it something I'm doing wrong? AIBU to just stop asking them questions?

Could you give a short example of an exchange between you and a friend?

Eg

You: how's your week going Sara?

Sara: fine thanks.

You: (trying again!) have you been up to anything exciting?

Sara: not really no.

That would be hard work...'Sara' isn't really giving much back here an you're quickly going to dry out.

Is this what you mean?

I think I don’t ask many questions in conversation because I don’t want to be intrusive and feel nosey. Everybody is different! 🤷🏼‍♀️

Or is it more like the above, but with 'Sara' answering your questions, but not reciprocating by asking you how your week was?

@northernknickers nah they will ask generic questions like how are you, how's your DD etc? But they never seem to ask any deeper questions like about my past or my life, what has made me who I am. I am intrigued by people and want to know everything. Maybe it's just me.

So for example,

Me - how was your holiday?

Friend - great thanks

Me - would you go back?

Friend - yeah I would

Me - where was it you were again

Friend - Arizona

Me - oh really, I actually lived there for a few years

Friend - oh cool

Like just no probing or interest

My SIL is like this - she won’t really say much until you ask her stuff about herself and then she’s suddenly quite animated. But then we’re not really close, so I’m not too bothered by it, I’ll happily talk to other people instead when I’m bored of asking questions - but if it was a close friend it would irritate me a lot.

I find this too.

You will have a particular personality that it’s natural for you to ask questions and not allow silences.

I used to (sometime I still am) be offended by people not being interested in me (it’s all about me, right?!) but you do have to accept that you’ll have introverts and those that will worry about asking too much and you being offended by the questions.

I spent the evening at a wedding the other week catching up with a bunch of old college friends. Found out about families, relationships, issues in marriages, fertility treatment, job / career stuff - everything. All other people’s stuff. Not one question to me 🤷🏼‍♀️

I try not to take it personally

Perhaps they feel as though they are being interrogated instead of having a chat. If you are asking very personal intrusive questions they may not feel comfortable giving in-depth replies. After all, it's meant to be a friendly chat, not a psychiatric assessment or counselling session.

No advice sorry, but just wanted to say my mid 20s daughter has recently been saying the same about her close group of school friends who have stayed in touch and meet up every so often. Dd is a vet and she said none of them ever ask about her work or really want to really about it, and yet they're all enthusiastic about eachother's jobs. We think they just don't really understand it and although they all like animals, they're not really mad about them so it doesn't really interest them. It's a shame that they can't be a bit more supportive though as it's a very stressful job - thankfully she has her old vet school friends to talk to and some lovely colleagues. Just seems a shame ..

Ah ok. It's a tough one isn't it? If you're naturally inquisitive and love to find out more about people, you probably want/hope that they feel the same about you. But some people are genuinely just not interested in others 'internal workings'. It's not a reflection on you at all. And to be completely honest, it can be pretty exhausting being quizzed, if you're on the receiving end.

You need to 'read the room', so to speak. Pick up on the social cues of those around you to gauge the mood. Is this a 'deep conversation' type conversation, or are we doing a more 'social chit-chat' type thing. Socially and professionally it's important to (at least try) to get the tone right (or at least 'ball park'). It's a skill...and a good one to have. It comes naturally to some people, but you can learn how to be good at all types of conversations. It takes practise though.

I hope you find your balance OP...I'm sure your friends do care and want to know you...they just don't share your conversation style.

I find people who ask a lot of personal questions to be really intrusive and tend to keep a wide berth from them. In that scenario, i wouldn’t be asking them questions in return and I’d probably give them monosyllabic answers because I find them nosy and don’t want to encourage them/want to keep them at a distance.

With some genuine friends (rather than nosy acquaintances) who ask a fair amount of questions, it’s sometimes the case that they don’t leave any room in the conversation for questions to be reciprocated. It’s just question after question with no gap.

But you could carry on the conversation. After she said 'oh cool' you could have talked about your experience a bit asking a couple of questions. I'm rubbish at asking questions. Happily talk about myself. I'd be happy for people to tell me about themselves

I think the advice in dealing with people who give monosyllabic replies is to ask "open" questions..
So instead of "how was your Holiday" ask "what did you do on your holiday".
Instead of "Would you go back" "what would make you go back"

It's an awful lot of hard work for a friendly relationship though

I would actually question whether they even like to be in your company if this is what they are like. People you click with the conversation should flow.

Although some people are just plain hard work.

At odds with my online personality - I cant stand interrogators. And I dont interrogate IRL either, might have a little probe her and there, but TBH these sound like acquaintances rather than friends.

Would they still text you if you didn’t initiate it? If not, then they aren’t real friends.