I grew up very socially inept but with time and observation i was able to develop a decent understanding of conversational skills, but online chatting? im just lost.
When is it acceptable to start an online convo with someone you know in person? what is a good excuse to start it?
How often do you chat with classmates/friends?
How the hell do i keep an interesting conversation going online? especially when the other person takes hours to respond?
2 comments
For an excuse: either invite them somewhere or send a meme of something you think they’ll like with a small message
How often: me and my best mates don’t even talk every day, but we do share images constantly or news about stuff we like. “Check out this trailer for x” or “did you see what happened in x?”. It also helps that we have a group chat for that, and we chat privately about once or twice a week.
How to keep it interesting: just kind of let it die every now and then. A healthy chat isn’t supposed to be active 24/7, and it does need some downtime. If private and the conversation seems to be dying abruptly, actively end it (“gotta go do x I’ll hit you up later”) and start it again later (“so where were we”/”hey did you see x”/”check out this cool dank meme”).
Don’t stress too much about it. The only people you should probably be speaking to every single day are those who are very close to you, and with them you likely won’t need to keep things interesting.
Cold harsh truth: you will NEVER build a genuine friendship with anybody if you just hide behind your screen and text. You always will be anxious and overtime become needy. Learn how to genuinely connect with people in person. DM people to set up a face to face communication or to an actual in person activity. You’ll stand out considerably. Read all the tips listed here, especially the ones on genuinely connecting with people, interacting in person, and adding value to people’s lives: https://www.reddit.com/r/socialskills/comments/trlexh/how_to_avoid_being_needy_or_stop_being_needy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf