Is anyone else’s family just very awkward?

[Dannydyerwashotinthenineties]

Love them all obviously, but my family is just very awkward. If we all go for a meal or out somewhere, there are times when everyone just sits there and doesn’t talk for ages. I just find it very awkward. I’m not an extrovert, but I do talk, they are very quiet at times and not any real effort to make much conversation. When I’m with friends/others, I’m the fairly quiet one, but with my family, I really need to take the lead, there’s no initiative or energy really and I feel myself just adapting to the environment
Our dd is 5 and v outgoing and tries to talk to everyone and get them involved, but there’s not that much response there either. Dh is average sociability but I can see he always finds it awkward.
Is this normal? I find it hard work to always be the one initiating conversation, my parents alone or just with us are ok or my sister just with me is okish, it seems to be when we’re all in a group together. It saps my energy and is draining really and makes me feel sad it’s like this

I have to ask. People with families with this dynamic, do you enjoy being together or is it duty?

I actively seek out and arrange to be with my family because I enjoy their company. We go away together, we do stuff together because we enjoy it.

If you find the company of your family awkward, who arranges for you to be together?

Family meals are always awkward. You go somewhere. Someone thinks it's too posh and tuts at the prices. Someone else thinks it's too rough and they are serving slop. Someone else is disappointed by the drinks range. The person who suggested the venue feels affronted. The kids are bored. And eventually someone starts moaning about immigrants or benefit scroungers. Someone then says what a nice time they had with the other side of the family at another venue the week before 🫣. At least that's my family!!!

My family are great company I would want them as friends if they weren’t family.

Dh family are hard work socially so it becomes a duty call sadly.

Have you tried all going out for breakfast together?

By the evening all my family are exhausted and we sit round the table eating supper and not much is said really. However get us all together for a decent breakfast and, at the weekends, it can last up to two hours with conversation, laughing and joking.

If I had my way I would even meet friends for breakfast than go out for dinner!

You’ve described my family OP, if I go out for a meal with DHs family the conversation flows naturally and it’s very easy but my family just sit there in silence and if I try to make conversation I just get awkward responses, they just don’t seem to like chatting.

YANBU
DPs are like this and it drives me mad. They used to invite me over and just sit in silence all evening and get irritated if I tried to make conversation. Others have said the same to me, and that it’s quite baffling and awkward, so I know it’s not just me.

Why do you think that is @SoupChicken?

Did you ever chat with your parents? Eat dinner at the table and talk? Did they entertain?

My family are awkward although maybe not in the same way as OPs.

That said my sibling is often monosyllabic and grumpy.
Dad - is chatty but awkward in other ways .
Mum - will talk but only on things like the weather/ traffic- the conversation can seem a bit limited.

Got a family meal coming up - like pp's family there will be grumbling about prices, etc etc.

Not family but my DPs friends are like this. I find it draining and exhausting. Even when we sit drinking alcohol (which surely is a social lubricant at its primary use!?) They don't say a word to one another aside from the odd 'anyone fancy another drink' or other similar things then silence again.
I got so bored once that I took myself off to bed feigning a headache.

A friend group that don't talk?

It’s hard to say it’s exactly one thing but they never had friends when I was growing up so they never entertained, we did sit at the table but we were mostly talked at rather than had a conversation. Partly I think it’s that they just genuinely aren’t interested in anyone else, so they don’t see the point of a conversation even for politeness sake, plus my dad is very rigid in his thinking so you can’t really have a discussion because he’ll just talk over you and tell you you’re wrong or whatever you like is crap. My mum will ring me and tell me about what she’s had for lunch and how she’s had her hair cut and then say right, bye and hang up without asking me a single thing about me or her grandchildren. It’s only since I left home I’ve realised quite how odd they are.

My dad's family are like this, and my mum's family are the complete opposite. Both can be lovely sometimes, and both can be exhausting and draining at other times!

I also had friends whose families were very quiet. Some families are just like that and are happy being like it... I don't think anyone's necessarily wrong.

This is what I feel like with my family, its as if they would literally all just sit there looking at their phones until I start a conversation with one of them and then can't get a word in edgeways as they all then start talking about what I have started a conversation about. I don't even manage to finish what I was saying 😂 Then it will go quiet for a while and back to staring at screens, til I ask someone else a question, and everyone else jumps on it again. Its so weird!

I remember going, against my better judgment, to a meal and disco with work colleagues. Somehow I ended up at the end of a long table with1) a colleague with very little English, 2) a PE person who was pissed before arrival and insisted on singing loud rugby songs whilst banging the table with cutlery and 3) the school bore who talked about themselves, their ailments and their children without pause for breath and never once either asking a question or listening to any comment squeezed into the scenario... hell!
I decided then never, ever to go to anything vaguely similar ever again... and I haven't, the relief is immense
To think I paid for that torture, MUG!

I'm not saying its normal or necessarily health or fine btw! I feel this with some friends and its not relaxed but rather charged with emptiness and maybe a bit of sadness and feeling of failure. I do think we have lost the art of conversation in some way and it's a real loss and not sure what the answer is.

Mine is. I'm the youngest of four and my sisters are all, to varying degrees, much shyer and quieter than me. When I spend time with just them I feel like I'm the battery pack relied on to make all the conversation, talk to strangers etc. I am the youngest and an extrovert but I like to have genuine interaction. They really don't gave much to say - their lives are quiet but you can still take an interest in the wider world. It's really draining but if I don't do 'my job' I'm seen as being unfriendly or rude. It's diet of baked in after so many years but when just because you're chatty doesn't mean you don't want the stimulation and chat of others.

When I was young I was characterised as being a talkaholic. I've chilled and matured with age. But I know I don't really want to just listen to myself - I want company and to be interested by others interests and perspectives. I have a good number of good friends and love to talk with them (or drink or eat) and chew over what's going on in our lives it the world. I like also to be entertained by others. I'm in my 60s and divorced but when I've dated men who come with conversation and ideas I've seen it as generous and interesting.

Don't get me wrong I love family dos and so do my kids (know in their 20s) - because we have great fun with all my nieces and nephews - their cousins. In fact I'm closer to the next generation in energy and interests than my own sisters. So I love that but not so much just being in my siblings company.

No. We are not like this. All very chatty. On both sides. I would think something was up with them if they just sat there 😂

I'm very chatty personally but also very happy to be in peace on my own. But then I miss them all if they're away too long.

It's just how we are. I guess some people are just different.

I can’t fathom this at all, I don’t know if I’m just lucky but hand on heart I don’t think I’ve ever sat around a table with an awkward silence. I’m a bit confused by this thread!

@BrieHugger Good for you! But you honestly can’t see how different people and families can act differently and not be like you and your family? Really

@JeysusH yes! They honestly don't! It's bloody weird. They just sit there. I've refused to join the last few gatherings because it is so tedious. I'm not saying I'm the most exciting person in the world but it me and my friends go out for dinner or drinks we embrace a catch up, talk about one another's lives or what's going on or anything really.

They're just 'getting another drink anyone want one?' Or 'not keen on this cider might get a G&T next' & that's about it..
Nope.