I’m a 23 year old male and I’ve had a problem of not being able to lead conversations for as long as I can remember. I often feel like I’m the “less important” person during a group conversation, and in regards to talking to older family members out of my immediate family, I feel like they still talk to me as if I was a child (even though I’m tall and physically fit).
This is obviously my fault and I have some insight as to why this is the case. One of those being that I feel like I’m not the best at getting my point across when I talk, so I often end up not saying anything substantial at all in fear of being judged as stupid/weird. I also feel like I don’t have a lot of life experience to bring to the table, so when people talk about their house/kids/experiences I struggle with bringing up something relatable from my side. This has resulted in people saying that I don’t have much of a personality, and that did hurt to hear.
I don’t think I’m socially inept at all as I don’t have a problem conversing with people, it’s just that I never feel like I have a presence during those conversations. I’m so tired of being this way and I need to change, any ideas of how to tackle this?