I always try to play the game of "don't say a thing about yourself until someone asks" and it always works wonders. Everyone loves me since all I do is ask questions, giving them an opportunity to speak about themselves. It seriously makes me hate people though since so few actually asks anything back.
Something happens to me with a certain frequency and I have yet to understand it. In a social group of people who are just getting to know each other, there are people I run into who only ask questions, and so I find the constant question-asking to be a defense mechanism (if that's the right term). That is, "I don't know how to go about talking to random people but if I just keep the questions coming, it'll be easier for me."
So there are times when I feel all I've done is talk about myself and it makes me uncomfortable in the end. The only option open to me in these circumstances is to force the direction of the conversation on them. When I've just uttered the last word to the answer of the question they've asked, they ask me a follow-up before I've taken my next breath, so I'd have to force "enough about me, what's your experience with ____?" When I run into such a person, I usually give up and just answer all their questions. It's not that I don't want to know about them.
Do you find any truth in this or has it ever happened to you, on either end of the spectrum?
I've experienced this. I think you understand it well enough. It is uncomfortable because it is a one-sided conversation and when you know that the person might think they are manipulating you into liking them, it is hard not to feel exploited.
I'm happy to say that some of the worst offenders in my life have improved their style over the years and respond to my answers with anecdotes of their own. They might still think they're getting me to like them but the conversation is interesting enough that I'm not annoyed by it.
I'm kind of the same. It's amazing how few people will actually ask about you. I often wonder if I'm giving them the rare opportunity to talk about themselves, or if they're like this all the time.
I've tried that but often the other person also doesn't say much. For instance, I distinctly remember a conversation I had with a woman at an alumni gathering where any question I asked about her work was met with monosyllabic responses. She didn't seem to want disengage from the conversation (body language wasn't "I want to walk away") but wasn't interested in carrying her end of it either. In the end I had to make my excuses and walk away because of how uncomfortable the conversation was.
