I struggle in conversation for a couple of reasons, 1) I pretty much never do it, 2) I genuinly have nothing to talk about with people.
people often open up a conversation with something like “what have you been up to”, to which my response is always nothing. I mostly spend my time watching things on youtube, and dont leave the house much, and dont have any hobbies. if I have done somtething worth talking about, I either forget (I have terrible memory for life events) or I don’t feel that it would be interesting to talk about/ the other person wouldnt care. from their the conversation either dwindels out, or I repeat the question back, but it’s likely they just kill the conversation there (what is there to talk about with someone who doesn’t do anything?)
I think a lot of my problem stems from the fact that I learnt any social skills I have through youtube, where most of what is said is in direct response to something that happened in a game the person is playing, and so is observational humour. I think I’m pretty funny in that regard (making observational jokes, so in situatins where I can sideline and just deliver a punchline, e.g. in school (although this does mean im an annoying shit that disrupts anyone sat near me). And I think this is also the only reason the “friends” I have are my friends as I usually only make them while playing games (they are irl friends, but I play games with them for any interaction I have outside of school) so I can just sideline any actual conversation and say a joke in response to whats happening.
even with my friends, if I dont have some stimulus to fill for conversation, I cant speak to them. If I went for a walk with them, it would be 99% awkward silence as I dont have anything interesting to speak about. If the other person does try and start a conversation, I generally cant respond to what they say (if they start talking about some event that happened to them, my response would probably be “thats cool…” or some other awkward closed response, and wouldnt be able to prod further questions about what happened etc… and cant develop the conversation any further). When I eves drop other peoples conversations to try and learn how to be better socially myself, I often feel it’s incredibly fake – like people prod questions about something they don’t care about to be nice to the other person and to be liked, and bring up some random bullshit event no-one else cares about, and I find it hard to do myself (I also find it strangely contradictory that I want to learn to do it since I dont like it in the first place… I guess having fake conversation is better then no conversation?)
any help would be appreciated, since I’m starting to get to the point where I will leave school, and have mostly stopped playing games (my only forms of interaction with people), and Im realising more and more that isolations really isn’t good for your mental health. – not really sure what help I’m expecting to get, if there was some secret formula everyone would know it by now, just wanted to get this off my chest I guess xD