Glazed expression during conversations

[Feliznavidog]

Does anyone else seem to encounter more and more people who just seem uninterested in conversations? Or rather, what the other person is saying?

Luckily not the case with most of my family members or very close friends but I’ll often be out with a friend or talking to an acquaintance at a party or something and we’ll be having a conversation and I just feel whenever I say something they instantly switch off.

I’m a very active listener, engaged in conversation, ask questions of people and take an interest in people and what they have to say. I often feel this isn’t reciprocated? I can have a whole conversation with someone and not have a single question asked of me, not even ‘how about you?’ Similarly, I could have asked a question of someone and they’ve talked at length or they’ve been telling me an anecdote, and the moment I start to respond with either my own anecdote or thoughts on the matter I just see a glazed expression or a slight flicker that I know means they aren’t very interested.

I really don’t think it’s because I’m droning on or anything like that! It just makes me feel like so many interactions are one sided these days. Are people just lost in their own thoughts now more than they were before?

Oh OP, in the kindest possible way, do you tell rather long monotone stories? My mil and my DH are guilty of rambling in a very monotone voice without pauses and I admit that although it might be a bit rude, I just can't always muster the energy to actively listen to a story which never seems to get to the point and I do occasionally glaze over.

I have never glazed over with new acquaintances or friends or anyone else except my DH and mil because I do think it's rude. But if you met my DH or mil you may also glaze over by the third long story about someone you've never met or a train engine or something...

Sorry op but it might be you without you realising it. I am the same! I often see people glazing over and have to think right time to stop haha. I do have a habit of telling long boring stories.

There are some people that do talk in one long sentence without pausing (agree with PP) that are very difficult to cope with. No natural break for the other person to speak/escape. You don't sound like that though if you listen to other people? People love talking about themselves generally I find.

I also think people who don't try and find out about the other person or try and have a two way conversation incredibly rude. It's often men...

Genuinely not! I’m thinking of a recent experience when out for a coffee with a school mum friend and she’d been talking for a while about something that had happened to her, and I literally just started sharing something similar (I had been speaking about 10 seconds) and saw her glaze. I really don’t talk at length!

She's the rude one not you. Some people just haven't been brought up with the manners to know how to have a conversation unfortunately.

Haha oh dear! I really don’t think I’m monotone, I’m quite an energetic person and I do talk quickly so I suppose maybe it’s that?

It doesn’t explain the lack of questions though, unless people just don’t want my answer! Makes me feel like I’m doing an interview though when a whole interaction is just the other person talking to me.

I don't know - DH has a habit of droning on sometimes and it must admit I do zone out. I just don't care about fishing or his latest bit of work equipment or what some random client said to him that morning.

That said. I do try and ask him questions but sometimes my only contribution is "mhmm".

Yes male acquaintances at a party or similar are the worst!

Yes I get this often. I mean, obviously I am not the issue 😉 It is often a new mum I am trying to bond with, say at football training, possibly over-enthusiastically. I sometimes wonder why I bother! I have good friends who seem to like me so probably shouldn’t.

It’s such a shame! I’m really really mindful of not talking too much, I just feel like my contribution is often just when they switch off! Maybe I’m too enthusiastic!

Sometimes people can think they're empathising but it can feel a bit "elevenerife" - I have a friend who can't just listen, she has to have had the same experience and to have done it better!

To be fair I do this all the time with DH too! 😂

I do notice this and I do think it's more frequent than before unless I have become a boring old codger.

Being able to listen is a skill. An often underrated skill.

Too many people think it is important that they have something to say and see conversation as a platform not an interaction.

Dont even get me started on work situations where they are reading emails or tapping away whilst someone is explaining something important. Especially when they ask the person to repeat it.

@Drivingoverlemons in my defence I know he does the same thing to me when I ramble on so I don't feel too bad about it 😂

OMG yes a previous line manager would be on Teams to me (in a 1:1) and he’d talk at length but as soon as I started speaking he was clearly doing his emails. Infuriating!

It doesn’t explain the lack of questions though, unless people just don’t want my answer! Makes me feel like I’m doing an interview though when a whole interaction is just the other person talking to me.

I never ask MIL questions, not because I'm not curious but because she barrages me with a billion questions, it's constant, and I feel like I'm in an interrogation and talking about things I didn't want to really talk about, because she inevitably asks follow up questions on the same thing and it's very uncomfortable. Some people find it hard to take control of the conversation when you keep asking lots of questions.

Also did you interrupt coffee friend before she'd quite finished? I switch off a bit when people interrupt me when I was trying to say something because it makes me feel like they weren't listening, just waiting to say their own thing. It sounds like her behaviour made you feel like you weren't listened to, so I do sympathise.

That’s an adhd trait to start sharing your own opinion immediately, without realising the story isn’t about you.

Well, either you keep encountering poor listeners, or what you’re saying is deeply boring. I note you say the glazing over happened in one case when you’d only been talking ten seconds — it seems to me the key thing here is what you were talking about? I mean, I am genuinely interested in people but ten seconds on Arsenal’s chances in the PL, office politics or I’m A Celebrity and I would be praying for death.

Me too - I barely get a grunt if I start mentioning holidays or anything else I need him to be actively interested in!

I have received it when people were not interested in talking to me, they could glaze 5 words in. At least once the person was actually listening, has autism and zones out visually but is actually listening. It's the only way they could seem to maintain eye contact but their try too hard backfired.
I have done it due to anxiety or preoccupied by something worrying me or happening soon. Sometimes it's because I have been so drained and tired. When I was young and beautiful sometimes people zoned out taken back by my appearance. I have zoned out at someone i found so intimidatingly handsome. Sometimes i can't concentrate because i'm so distracted by how much they look like someone else or trying to place their accent ironically at missing out on what they're actually saying. I would keep it brief, shift body language and voice tone if i felt like someone is drifting off and they need to be listening. Likw saying SO! very enthusiastically and loudly or saying VERY IMPORTANT before summing up or repeating. If it's just social inconsequential chat I just wrap it up by smiling and turning away for example.

Yes, some people have poor social skills, OP and are particularly bad at being an active listener, or just plain rude.

Even if you find a story boring, and I'm sure we are all boring to others at times, you should listen politely and react.

Yes I know a couple of people like that. It probably isn’t you. The two I know are very self centred and can’t hide it well, they glaze over if I talk about anything they aren’t interested in even when they asked me a question about it, even a short answer. I know they are thinking about themselves when the glazing over happens because they’ve actually told me.

Dear OP, I mostly switch off instantly since childhood, when someone goes on about stuff that doesn't directly involve my life.
As for the "glazed expression", I used to put a very good mask on, until about the age 42,
when I dropped these "talkers" and feel fine.
😉

Someone in work is like this - thankfully they are still mostly in the office and I wfh. She is awful.

I used to have to travel with her - she is senior to me- and it felt like torture. I had only recently come out of hospital after a bad asthma attack once and someone in work was asking about me. Despite not being in the conversation she suddenly started rattling on about when she nearly died from pneumonia