I cannot talk to people. No matter how hard I try, no matter how much I try to rack my brain for conversation topics or individual words to say to people nothing ever comes up. During conversations the most you’d see in my head is a tumbleweed flying past because my brain is just that empty. I mostly just stand there and listen to the others talk while I’m trying to think of something to say but 3 years into my friendship with my friends and I’m still failing to engage in conversation with them. I dont know the root cause of this and (so far at least) I havent even seen someone who’s in a situation similar to what I’ve at the least attempted to describe so honestly idk where to even start other than just ask on reddit.
I know theres not a lot of info and honestly I’m not expecting much from the jumbled mess of a post I’ve written but any help/insight is appreciated and any questions you have that might help you understand better I will at least attempt to answer.
6 comments
Can you talk to yourself fine, like in your head? like during some situations do you have some commentary in your head?
I could probably talk for hours about nothing. Have you thought about acting classes and reading a script? Talk to elderly people? Can you talk about your favorite movie?
Same I really can’t understand how people can just think of topics off the bat so fast. I’ve been looking up how to keep convos going and lots of convo starters but it hasn’t helped.
This sounds like a problem I’ve had throughout my life. Recently I listened to a podcast episode that made me realize that there is a restraint mechanism in my head that won’t let me interrupt or make interjections out of fear of being rude. I will listen to other people talk for lengths of time that any normal person would find absurd. Once I fall into that mode, my thought processes shut down and my “self” kind of disappears, so if even I’m prompted to participate, there’s no one home to do so. I think it may be a type of dissociation going back to having a personality-disordered parent who demanded a lot of listening.
Not saying that’s your problem, just putting it out there. Social anxiety is a real thing, too xD
Your not alone, i’m in the same boat man. I know a lot of people that would consider me as the “popular person” cause I know a lot of people, but in my eyes I feel like i’m not social at all and don’t know how to keep or start convo’s. Majority of the time I go off of the other person’s conversations because I never know what to say, but even at that it’s like people don’t know what to say to me. My brain freaks out thinking of shit to say. I have 3 close friends that i’ve known for over 6 years and it seems like conversation is such a problem with me but when I look at them everything is so normal and flows with each other. I always chalk it up as it just being a “me” thing and try to be myself but it just seems to me like i’m the problem.
I’m having the same problem here. Although I can have below average conversations with my close friends, when it comes to anyone else I don’t know what to say. But at the same time, when I talk to my psychologist, mom, or dad I’m like a chatterbox. Hopefully we’ll both figure this out somehow lol