How do I deal with people who only want to talk about their interests and don’t actively listen to me.

44 Male here, in the US married with kids and family. Have a healthy social life and don’t have problems with making friends and friendly acquaintances right now.

I don’t know if this is a post-covid thing, but in the workplace (I work in an in-person office environment) and in other normal social situations (like walking to school or being in the world), I am increasingly attracting a very certain demographic approaching me and trying to befriend me and it is draining me and I don’t know how to make it stop.

They are men in their 30s-50s, **very** into watching film / tv shows / media, and can’t wait to tell me what media they are consuming and will not hesitate to repeatedly recommend things to me to watch, even though I have told them repeatedly that I don’t watch tv or movies at all. I was into that in the past and retain geek / pop culture knowledge fairly well so I feel like I’m being punished for being friendly and engaging with them (because I don’t want to be a dick).

They will come up to me in the guise of a normal friendly conversation, and they probably mean well, but I can tell right away from their conversation that they are not at all listening to me because they are repeatedly asking the same questions to me and or repeating my own anecdotes or bits of knowledge back to me without remembering that I was the one who shared that with them that on the previous day. They aren’t listening. They are just eagerly waiting for their turn so they can talk to me about what movie I should watch.

What can I do about this? I am giving off some sort of welcoming vibe to that and I’d like to adjust that.