I’m a freshman in college and I’ve recently made a group of friends from my public speaking class.
At first I was glad to have finally made friends but after a while I started to feel like most of my conversations with them were unenjoyable and unrelatable, I suppose I can’t stand small talk but even when we do discuss “deeper” topics it just leads to them only talking about themselves and me just listening.
I do acknowledge that this is largely my fault as I am a reserved person and I find it difficult to talk about myself but it feels weird to know so much about people and they can’t even say they know much about me.
I also find that I just genuinely don’t care to hear these people’s stories and yet I end up in conversations where I am forced to listen because of politeness, I am very inquisitive and I do ask people lots of questions in hopes that I can move the conversation somewhere interesting, so that is probably why I end up in these conversations.
Having conversations with people just feels like talking to a child, having to fake excitement and showing overexaggerated emotion for things you don’t care about just so you can be seen as a decent person and so that you have some form of social interaction.
I can’t find people that I share interests with in person, I know some online but we’re all just acquaintances. I just wish I could meet someone who I could really relate to in person.
I don’t know how to interact with people in a way that doesn’t feel like self-betrayal.
I just feel like I only like people in theory.