To ask what you talk about with people who have no interests?

[TheBestPlansAlwaysFail]

I am making more of an effort to make some new friends now that lockdown is over.
(We moved back to the city we now live in right before lockdown and most of the people I was friends with when I previously lived here have moved away - so rude of them! )

Anyway, what I noticed is that there seem to be so many people who have absolutely no interests (and some seem to have no personality to top it off). I usually have no issue to find a topic of conversation but with some people, nothing seems to lead anywhere - arts, sports/fitness, science, reading, traveling, music, cooking, pets, gardening,....? They're not interested/scared/don't care. Stuff like politics, social equality, philosophy? They don't have an opinion on it. Work, family, etc? All good but there is not really much to talk about.

It is like drawing blood from a stone. What can you actually talk about with people like this? I am not looking for friendships for life right now, I just want someone to go to the pub and have a half-way decent conversation with - but by the end of these 'conversation', I am just drained and looking for an out. Maybe it is lockdown? Have people forgotten how to hold a conversation?

What makes me really scratch my head is people who talk and talk about other people but never ask you a question or look bored if you say anything.

Dsis is like this. She will talk for hours about all sorts of people (I don’t know) and their lives and times. Yet if I say, well, anything she is silent for a beat and then starts talking herself. In our last telephone call I actually thought we’d been cut off, as I said, “DD has started a job.” And there was a deathly silence. I said, “Are you still there?” and she started off about one of her in-laws. So other people must be telling her about themselves and dsis listens, but it doesn’t apply to me!

Know what you mean op. I found lunch breaks hard while temping. Kids different ages etc. Then covid nobody had any news!! My main topics were tv netflix hobbies or pets if we both had pets.

[quote Fizzbangwallop]@TheGenealogist I wonder if I’m your SIL . The reality is DH and I have lots of interests but we can never get a word in because our SIL barely pauses for breath. I’m sure she tells everyone how boring we are and that we never go anywhere/do anything but as soon as I mention something I enjoy she talks over me![/quote]
There is no reason to suppose that the OP does this. The people she meets always want to meet her again, so she’s clearly not dominating the conversation unfairly, is she? If she were, the other person wouldn’t want to be friends with her.

Most likely, the people she is meeting are a bit ‘needy’ and want a fun, lively friend to do all the hard work for them and arrange a social life for them. Which is hardly fair on the friend! When I’ve been that person (often) it’s bloody exhausting.

Incidentally, I am in full agreement with the PP who categorised people joining social groups into the As (socially adept, find their people, make the social connections, move on) and the Bs (less adept, empty vessels waiting to be filled). The OP needs to find the other As!

As far as she was concerned conversation was for her enjoyment, not a two way thing.

That's a bit of a lightbulb moment. Is it possible that someone assumes a conversation between two (or more) people is all about their enjoyment? As someone said upthread, conversation's an art and when two of you do it properly it can be very life-affirming and warm and wonderful. Otherwise it can be hard work.

I think it’s really socially lazy to let everyone else make conversation. I used to be trapped in an office with women who had limited interests (dogs and kids only) it was awful. The only other thing they would talk about was gossip about other people. The worst was that they thought anyone with hobbies or interests was odd and they were rude about them. It reminded me of secondary school bullies.
Before lockdown I went to a couple of weddings and it was the same with friends of friends who were there, just blood out of a stone. Im promising myself that next time I’m just taking my phone out, not making the effort to continue a conversation because it’s tiring and disheartening.

I feel for you, it sounds like you are surrounded by people that you have nothing in common with. You aren't being judgemental or a snob. You really need to find your tribe again. I am in the same position as you and having to start again after divorce. I am determined to find a way of surrounding myself with positive and inquisitive people. There's no shame in owning this.

DH and I are invited to lots of parties and I am convinced that that is because the hosts realise that 60% of their guests are yawny “me, my kids, my dog, my extension” people who bore the arse off anyone who can persuade them to join in a conversation. Hence that party needs people who will (1) listen politely to them for a period of time and (2) steer the conversation into more inclusive waters.

Iamthewombat Nah, I think it's just because you always turn up with nice wine.

Don't know about Iamthewombat but I do bring plenty and good wine ;)

Back from my night out. DH got to come along as someone wanted their DH to make men-friends. Potential man-friendship has been established and I am comfortably over-socialised and tipsy. Going to check back in the morning and catch-up on the locked parking threats in the meantime (because the internet is the one place where I can shamelessly enjoy a one-sided conversation )

Yes, it is difficult being so much more interesting than everybody else.

I’ve always found it so.

Play the silent card back, it's rude to not try make some conversation if put together socially. Start singing if the silence starts irritating you.

Maybe your clear intellectual and cultural superiority is a little overwhelming to some?
Christ, there are some harsh and judgemental people on this thread.

So much snipping. Conversation is an art. Not everyone can do it, but there’s no need to be rude about those that can. It just smacks of defensiveness about ones own social functioning inadequacies.

I'd stop the topic-based conversation - these topics are your preferred choice but maybe not everyone else's. Maybe start with "do you come from around here?" and then take what they say and expand on it - what was the reason for moving , what was the best thing about their previous home town or whatever. I find that the best conversations come from treating the person as if they are the most interesting person, whose story you are interested to know about. Rather than regaling them with your opinions about your favorite topics. It works for me !

Stuff like politics, social equality, philosophy? They don't have an opinion on it.

Maybe they think better of sharing their opinions about those subjects. People nowadays can be extremely intolerant of any opinion that differs from their own.

@ShippingNews

I'd stop the topic-based conversation - these topics are your preferred choice but maybe not everyone else's. Maybe start with "do you come from around here?" and then take what they say and expand on it - what was the reason for moving , what was the best thing about their previous home town or whatever. I find that the best conversations come from treating the person as if they are the most interesting person, whose story you are interested to know about. Rather than regaling them with your opinions about your favorite topics. It works for me !

Alas, the person upthread who said that Meet-Up groups divide into A types (socially competent, looking for friends in a new place) and B types (who struggle with social interaction and keep attending the open meet-ups for years, expecting someone to befriend them) is absolutely right.

In that case, @ShippingNews, your conversational gambits would go something like this:

‘Do you come from around here?’
‘From X.’
“‘Oh, is that a nice place to live?’
‘Dunno, bit boring.’
‘But you’re originally from somewhere else?’
‘Y.’
‘What was Y like to live in?’
‘Dunno, really, same as anywhere.’
‘And did you move here for work?’
‘Yes.’

After which, as a pp said, they appear completely unaware that they haven’t shown the remotest interest in he other person and follow them around for the rest of the meeting listening to them talking to other people, apparently waiting to be introduced to the other people.

Some of these conversations sound like the other person might be neurodiverse. One of the bits in the diagnosis is where the clinician leave a closed conversational opener like 'i went on a plane yesterday' and the other person could say all sorts to that from 'what type of plane' to ' im scared of planes did you find it ok?' to 'did you come back from holiday' etc obviously lots of neurodiverse people learn to converse well naturally and some do it as a learned skill and its tiring but many would think you just shared a fact and it required no input.

Most of the people i enjoy talking to don't talk about topics. They're great to chat to cause they're funny, observant. It's the small stuff, the listening, the gentle to and fro that is the heart of conversation for me.

I also know people who like to talk about stuff: their opinions on world affairs, films, books etc. I appreciate thats their way of chatting and will always join in but in comparison its harder work and less fun: the potential for it all to get a bit sixth-form-cafe is ever present

@ShippingNews

I'd stop the topic-based conversation - these topics are your preferred choice but maybe not everyone else's. Maybe start with "do you come from around here?" and then take what they say and expand on it - what was the reason for moving , what was the best thing about their previous home town or whatever. I find that the best conversations come from treating the person as if they are the most interesting person, whose story you are interested to know about. Rather than regaling them with your opinions about your favorite topics. It works for me !

I think that some posters are being deliberately obtuse. There is nothing to suggest that the OP has joined meet up groups as an excuse to ‘regale [people she meets] with her opinions on her favourite topics’.

She explains that she has tried a range of conversational gambits to get these people to, you know, talk!

I think that this thread really has touched a nerve with some posters.

The trouble with asking questions is a) it gets a bit wearing and b) you sometimes sound like an interviewer. I once sat next to a couple at a firm’s do of dh’s. I did the “Have you come far?” stuff and eventually established that they had a caravan. Cue me asking a million questions about caravanning, which they answered enthusiastically. I thought afterwards that they did not even know my name, let alone where I came from or anything else. Maybe they couldn’t care less, but did they really think I wanted to hear about them for two solid hours?

I have found some of this having recently started working in academia. I'll meet a fellow academic (the nature of what we teach means we're still doing a lot of face to face) who I've not met before and I'll ask about their background, where they worked before, what their speciality is etc and they'll often then drone endlessly at length about themselves and their achievements, hardly coming up for breath to ask me anything about myself. I just smile and make the right noises and nod. There's a lot of self importance and ego in academia I'm finding.

Even the droners on (the caravan couple sound awful) are better than the type who won’t engage on anything, which is what the OP is dealing with.

Example of a conversation I had with one such person, whom I’d met at a social group and who wanted to be friends with me, as evidenced by asking me twice to meet her for drinks:

Me (having already done all the ‘how are you’ stuff): what’s the worst hairstyle you ever had? I was laughing at some old photos of me last week.

Her: I don’t know really.

Me: there must be something, we were both teenagers in the 1980s!

Her: I can’t really remember stuff like that.

Me: OK what about clothes? I had some shockers (brief description of terrible 80s fashion choices). How about you?

Her: I never really think about things like that, it was a long time ago (we were both 36 at this point).

Me: now you are making me suspect that you did the full Bucks Fizz.

Her: oh no, I didn’t do that.

She then clammed up and waited for me to introduce the next topic. It is exhausting.

I think that this thread really has touched a nerve with some posters

I'm sensing quite a lot of Type Bs trying to explain why we Type As aren't asking them the right questions/ talking about the right things in order to enable them to talk. Very revealing.

Many years ago I moved into a new area and sought out a women's group that met once a fortnight in a pub in our nearest city. The first night there were five of them and they barely said a word to me or each other. There was a lot of gazing at the table. I asked a few fairly vague open questions, got no enthusiastic or engaged response so rather than feel like an interrogator I just sat quietly too. It was bizarre. Busy pub, silent table of women. I went back a month or so later and there was another newbie, a talker (hooray!), but no matter how much we tried to get conversation going it ended up with us having a good old natter while the other women just sat smiling to themselves.

The newbie and I started socialising together and found our tribe elsewhere. We'd occasionally call in and say hello to the silent group. Nothing seemed to change, they still sat there and said nothing while we talked. We used to hope that it was a joke and that as soon as we left the pub they'd be laughing about us interlopers and how they'd managed to repel us from their group.

Years later, after I'd moved away, I was at a women's gathering and a woman came up and said how lovely it was to see me and how much she'd enjoyed my company. She named the pub the silent group frequented — she was one of them. I was gobsmacked because she'd barely said a word to me. I tried asking her how the group was and whether they still met, but she'd said her piece and that was that — not another word. I think neurodivergence must have had something to do with it.

It would be interesting to hear from neurodiverse people what's going on for them when someone like me, a Type A conversationalist, starts talking to them.

I am the mum and ex-wife of neurodivergent non-conversationalists. They literally have no interest in the other person. That’s not to say they’re unkind or think badly of the other person, they’re just disinterested. If you get them on to their special topics away they go and they’ll bore the arse off about gaming, or varieties of honeybees, or whatever. They sort of like other people’s company but don’t see the need to contribute to it. All of them can mask to a degree and when prompted can do the “have you come far?” schtick but they can’t keep it up for long.

For them the joy of company is what they get out of it. No concern whatsoever as to what the other person might be thinking. As far as they are concerned that’s not their business.

One of them is very number/list oriented. So one of his “openers” is “let me tell you my 4 facts about helicopters” and if he doesn’t get all 4 facts out, it’s almost painful! They have to be shared even if I’m shouting “no no no! Let me wee in peace!”

Luckily they are also very loving and funny and cute. Except the ex.

Blimey, if they're that hard to talk to, why are you bothering?

Though I don't like talking about my interests really. My chief one being writing - people just ask very tedious questions.

I don't make a conscious effort with anyone to be honest. Either the conversation flows or it doesn't. But that's the big point - the conversation FLOWS. No long in depth conversations about anything. Books we read leads on to holidays, leads on to food, leads on to plans for next weekend, leads on to politics. Not forty minutes on the leading news of the day where we both ask incisive questions to understand our views. That's a seminar, not a conversation.