Why Are People Interested In Your Personal Life But Never Talk About Theirs?

[J_trustno1]

I had this happen to me several times with several people where majority of people are interested in my personal life but never share theirs. This has happened in real life and several times. I end up giving my information but never get anything from the other person. I don't know how to deal with this and be a bit more clever.

P.S. Lastly,I don't know if this is the right place or not for this therad but please feel free to move it.

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

2 ideas...

1) Gossip?

And...

2) Who are you talking too when this happens becasue my husband has this happen too...they want to know all about India and Indian culture.

 

[Glara]

Interestingly I have the same problem in the opposite way. People are always willing to tell me about their personal life, but never seem to want to know about mine. I would love to have someone to open up to, but people just seem to want to open up to me.

 

[Wastinglight]

I've had this before. I'm a pretty open and honest person, so generally I end up feeling offended if I've developed an otherwise close friendship with someone (ie. I've told them some pretty deep stuff about me) and they never open up to me at all. I think I get upset because I feel like they don't trust me.

The conclusion I've come to is that some people have an innate desire to be an agony aunt to others and/or they find that focusing on other people's issues means that they can avoid having to think about their own. I've had one of these people allude to it being something like that. Some people are just very private I guess. I can't really relate to that!

Or, some people like to do that Knowledge Is Power thing, but in my experience they are relatively easy to spot over time. It becomes obvious that they're not really interested in being friends, they just want information because they have some agenda or other to push.

I don't know how to deal with this and be a bit more clever.

Not sure what you mean by being a bit more clever. Do you mean that sometimes you end up feeling self-conscious cos you've shared too much? Or people use that information against you? I used to feel like that a lot, but I've decided that I am who I am. I try not to overshare with people I don't know very well (or whom i suspect don't have my best interests at heart), but I hate feeling suspicious of other people's motives. It wears me out second-guessing people all the time, so I'm working on trying not to worry about it so much. I like being open and honest. I don't want to have that stolen from me. If that makes any sense.

I'm sure there are hundreds of other reasons that people do this, that's just my two cents from my own experience :).

 

[ghotiff]

I think that conversations naturally flow to the easiest path. If your life is interesting (ie different) and you are chatty then the conversation will head that way where you chat a lot and the other person prompts you along.

To interrupt this cycle, giving short boring answers, allowing large silence gaps and asking questions from the other person can help.

Just my thoughts.

 

[Karen12]

I don't share a lot up front. If someone else wants to share something about their personal life with me, I will listen as long as it's not vulgar or malicious. Sometimes people just need to talk or vent.

If they ask about me and I don't care to share that information I sometimes say, "Oh, I don't like to talk about myself," and leave it at that. If they ask why, I respond, "It's boring." If they press (they shouldn't) I tell them, "It's called a private life for a reason," and give them a look that says, "I'm trying to be polite and you're overstepping your bounds."

People can be so rude and prying and don't understand the meaning of PRIVATE.

 

[digger]

Are you actively asking about their personal life, or just expecting them to offer it up? And the same the other way round, are they asking you about it, or is just stuff you're putting out there in the conversation?

Personally, I don't generally offer up any of my personal stuff unless directly asked about it, and even then I'll usually give the bare minimum I can get away with before changing the subject. I take an interest in other people's if they're putting it out there though, but I don't tend to ask myself. Not because I don't care or I'm not interested, but I struggle with knowing the 'rules' when it comes to conversation so I tend to err on the side of caution and not ask much. Perhaps the people you're talking about are just less comfortable talking about their life than you, or don't feel they have anything interesting to say, or are waiting to be asked first.

I think it depends what you're telling them too - if you've just shared something big with them, they might feel bad about taking the conversation over with their stuff and risk minimising what you've told them?

 

[J_trustno1]

hi all, sorry for coming to this post late. well, what's been happening is this:

My so called friends or acquaintances contact me either on Facebook or call or at the gym or wherever just to know if I have "found a man" or "have a job" or sometimes other questions about what is going on in my life and where I am standing in life. When I answer the questions and try asking about their lives, they either divert the question or just ignore me. I don't understand why people are that interested in what is going on in your life but not interested in sharing about their. I can go on with many examples but I just want to keep this question basix and simple.