How to identify if a person is interested in talking to you?

[soulfulriver]

@soulfulriver Same sort of stuff happens to me. The best advice is to worry less about it, if they were indeed worth your time they would reply and be able to keep up a conversation. That is the the main point of what I have to say.

However, there are some things that might push someone away, such as too much small talk or bringing up stuff that other people might not find interesting. Like I might like to talk about aquarium stuff, which is cool, but to other people might sound kind of nerdy or whatever.

Sometimes people are looking for attention and nothing else. I have found though many people are terrible communicators and this online only stuff I think compounds the problem. When we see people face to face we can infer a lot about intent. Body language alone can say whether someone is interested in you or not but with just text messages it's all but impossible to tell sometimes.

The bottom line is, like what I said at the start, don't worry about it so much. It is probably not you, you be yourself and if they don't reply then don't put any more effort into talking to them than you're willing and try not to be upset when they don't reply back, yes it is rude, frustrating and it is terrible that people practice this so often.

Thanks for your reply InbetweenDreams

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You're better off being the one who initiates the conversation, so you're good there. You have to find mutual interests and focus on that so it's a meaningful conversation for both of you. You have to get past "Hi, how are you, how was your day?" as soon as possible to hold anyone's attention.

So, tell us, what are your interests?

Thanks for your reply Camfer

My interests are learning new languages, cooking, and solving riddles and puzzles.

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Unfortunately it’s a side effect of ‘online’ conversations; people are free to casually walk out of them which you can’t do as easily in real life. This can be a benefit though (I for one can’t stand mundane taxi-style conversations like “bit wet today isn’t it?”).

Thanks for your reply IanSaysHi