Hello, I’m a girl, 19 years old. As the title says, I have this problem; everyone trusts me a lot, they tell me secrets, things about their life, problems, what they do, stuff that they like, etc and I listen to them with respect and attention adding some comments from time to time and they continue talking and talking super comfortable and chill. People just know me and they start to throw information and information of them to me … and when I talk, I don’t know how to explain all my ideas and I end up talking in a super simple way or thinking too much what to say… or even lowering my smartness and telling boring stuff. Nobody asks anything about me. Nobody worries about me. But they seem to be happy to be listened even though if they don’t know ANYTHING about me, the listener. It’s like I’m simply not there, like an empty shell, just a simple listener with no identity for them. Then they leave and there I’m with a hard-to-describe feeling where I just feel like I made no connection. People forgets me easily but I don’t, I can’t forget everything they told me… it stays with me for a long time and I feel like I connected with a piece of them but it was not reciprocal. Such a horrible sensation… this is sad. For me is hard to understand human connections, but in this case I can clearly see what is missing and that things shouldn’t be this way. It’s normal for me to feel depressed. Human social nature requires the feeling of being recognized to feel the sense of happiness and realization and I’m not receiving that.
How can I solve this?
I would like to tell you too that I’m shy, introverted, with low self-esteem (not confident), moderate depression issues and I have Asperger so all that could be a reason but I’m willing to fight to change this problem of mine.
Also, sorry my bad English.
7 comments
You are an ( empath)
Never apologize.
You probably have or ware a few ” mask”.
Actually you are ok you haven’t learn how to accept your gifts nor use them to live the best life you will be able to build.
People like to talk about themselves and everyone likes to be heard, I faced this similar social situation as well, from my experience they won’t even have a slight clue that you’re feeling alone even with friends being around you, you can get stuck thinking constantly about past regretting or future planning about what you have to say and you wanna avoid that
Put yourself out there believe me you have to try even with your closest friends too, you are unique and noone will have your thoughts/emotions/feelings, pick your moments in conversations and say something/anything that you might’ve experienced (even if it sounds dumb to you), my friends acted all intellectual even when I knew they were just following the masses, i realised later all they talk about how miserable they job is or bicker about something, my point if you feel you’re not being heard even within close friends you should start talking efforts yourself and it’s not your fault people just are generally dick and not very empathetic
Have you ever thought of becoming a psychologist? I know this won’t fix your issue with not being listened to, at all, but it sounds like you’re already a psych without being paid for it, you seem to make people feel comfortable, so maybe it could be something to look into if interested.
Do you see a psych yourself? That would really help with the validation, and if any of these people are actually close friends, raise this issue with them, tell them you don’t feel heard yourself because they don’t seem interested with you, and hopefully it makes them more conscience of this đź’ś
You’re an enneagram 9
Forming a relationship is about reciprocation and shared experiences. People are telling you things about themselves with an implicit prompt that you share a similar story. By not sharing your own details you’re presenting an uninterested face to them.
If you want to build relationships reciprocate. If someone tells you about their favorite movie, and you want to continue the conversation then tell them about your favorite movie in return. If you’re not interested in them then don’t share your favorite movie, and savvy people will get the hint.
Yes it’s a complex way of communicating things if you’re not a socially driven person. It’s done this way to protect egos. “Hey I want to be your friend” might be simple and easy to understand, but it’s also really hard on both parties if you have to reject their friendship in a simple and easy to understand way.
I would say one thing you can do is to try to relate something they say back to yourself. For example if they say:
“My dog keeps waking me up at night”
You could say something like:
“I can see that being a problem. Even though I don’t have a dog I do have a cat that likes to do the same thing”.
Obviously you would change it based on how it relates to you but the strategy is to acknowledge what they are saying but also get yourself into the conversation. If they keep ignoring you multiple times, than they are probably not worth talking to.
Or you can keep stockpiling secrets for a while. Then when the time is right, use the info to blackmail them into listening to you for a change. If you want to go the supervillain route.
Also what is the background on your Reddit username? It sounds like it’s a reference to something but I can’t put my finger on what it is.