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What do you do when you have trouble thinking of conversation topics with people you’re close with?


Sooks
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I’m not talking like you’re trying to talk to an acquaintance and you have no idea what to say like the Google results say, but asking if you ever don’t know what to say to close friends and family members? Like you already know each other’s job/dreams/hobbies etc and you fail to make basic conversation because your lives are now very uneventful due to everyone’s favorite virus and everything happening in the world mostly grants the same reaction? What do you do then? This happens to me with like... all of my (admittedly small) family.

Edited by Sooks
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So far, no.  I make terrible jokes to my mom/grandma, and they do the same (by "terrible" I mean "if I said that to a random stranger I'd probably be rightfully punched in the face").

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Quite often, yes.

Mainly because I have even less of a life now than I did before the pandemic hit.

I tend to become like a hermit of sorts and just retreat into myself, meaning that I don't communicate in the way that I should. I feel guilty because of it, since I really do love my mother and wouldn't want to make her feel neglected, but it's so difficult to do so most of the time.

Edited by twilitfalchion
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Oh yeah, all the time.
Sometimes I run out of things to say so fast, you get a single sentence out of me and that's it.

Then again, there aren't a lot of people I'm close to beyond family irl... but even online, I run out of things to say blindingly fast.
Not to mention, I have issues even engaging in conversations with people, because I get self-conscious very easily.

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3 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Then again, there aren't a lot of people I'm close to beyond family irl... but even online,

Family specifically in my case. I think we might be doing something tomorrow and I just wanted to see if anyone had any like strategies for this or at least could relate.

Edited by Sooks
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1 minute ago, Sooks said:

Family specifically in my case. I think we might be doing something tomorrow and I just wanted to see if anyone had any like strategies for this or at least could relate.

Ah, I see.
Then what I said still stands.
I run out of things to say a lot. Even when in a conversation, as soon as a third person joins in, I feel like I just get booted out (I don't, but sometimes it feels that way).

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40 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Then again, there aren't a lot of people I'm close to beyond family irl... but even online, I run out of things to say blindingly fast.
Not to mention, I have issues even engaging in conversations with people, because I get self-conscious very easily.

Same. I always feel bad because of my inability to both start and continue a conversation in person or online. It's not that I don't want to talk, but I feel like an idiot when I don't know what to say and get easily embarrassed.

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It really doesn't happen to me. I never run out of things to talk about when I'm with people I love being around/with my close friends and family. If I run out of things to talk about, then I wouldn't consider myself as being close with that person/those people to begin with.

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I do not feel too close to my parents, so there is always something to for them to talk about, even if I do not want to talk to them sometimes. As for my cousins, while I think I am close to them, I do not talk to them very often since most of them either live in Canada or New Zealand, so there is always catching up to do.

For my close friends though, when there is not something to talk about, we often just chill and enjoy each other's company. If I want to end the silence, I often make extremely inappropriate and super messed up comments/jokes. If they have earphones on or something, then I slap their butts or hug them to grab their attention. Since my group of close friends is pretty large and diverse, it is actually harder to come up with a conversation since our interests and hobbies are so different. In smaller groups though, it is easier to talk about things and find common ground. I like to talk about games we like in common, each other's new experiences in our careers, our pets,, when and what we should do for the next hangout, and most recently, our conversation is dominated by politics and the election.

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If I didn't know better, nobody in this thread has seen Pulp Fiction, because I don't see a problem here.

I think it just varies on a case by case basis. I don't say much at all to some of my loved ones.  They just seem to take offense to everything. Not so much the topics I bring up, but the assumption that I must not be taking life very seriously if that's what's on my mind. But with friends I can bullshit for hours about anything. Even the most mundane topics seem to be enough until my lungs tire out and it becomes too difficult to speak. Strangers are definitely another story though. When you're not used to a person's expressions or tone of voice, it feels like the person they're looking at must be a psycopath for wanting some casual conversation. And maybe they're right. I think that's why I like talking to older people. It takes very little to get some stories out of them. Stories that quickly devolve into rants about their kids spiced with a little casual racism, but at least it's something to listen to.

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Mm - I usually default to the hobbies that they're interested in, or something about themselves they like (usually a tangent crops up pretty quick, so even if the first topic is mostly exhausted, you can detour into topic B.  Say, first topic is their cat, second topic is funny cat stories.).  Failing that, commenting about something that's happening that week ('everyone you know safe from that hurricane?') or physically around them ('when was the last time you've been to this restaurant?')

Silence isn't bad either, but it requires a special person to be chill with it.

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im not the talkative type, but at least could maintain basic conversation when meeting with friends. but just like you said, pandemic made someone bad at conversation even worse now. since you rarely get in touch with each other, dunno what they are doing (asking via phone and asking face to face definitely feels different), you just dont know anymore what to discuss other than asking one question, and then... silence ensues

Thankfully i didnt have that much problem with family

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I don't really start conversations unless I have something to say or ask.

Usually, even before the pandemic hit, my friends and I could be sat in a room playing the same game as each other and hardly saying a word. I can get to be noisy when I'm really into something so my mother usually gets really confused when it's dead silent because we're all focused and not even chatting to each other.

The point I mean to make is that conversation should come naturally and trying to force it isn't really a way to keep a long and enjoyable conversation going.

If you want some topics to talk about try thinking of Movies, TV shows, Books, Games, Non Pandemic-related news and so on.

Heck, when the first lockdown started here I was basically demanded to play Scrabble because my mother was going insane from the lack of social activity.

Edited by Light Strategist
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