Just the opposite. I'm the one who goes off to do something else at family gatherings because they just talk and talk and talk.

Though it's not so much that they talk so much as that it's just the same stuff over and over - alternately, my brother slavishly regurgitating right-wing techbro quasi-libertarian bullshit and my mom reciting in excruciating detail some anecdote that's maybe vaguely related to the topic at hand and that she's told countless times already, because it's her go-to every time something in that vicinity comes up.

And what I wouldn't give to know them less well...

I dunno, I think especially in older generations, the earnest conversation is something to be avoided at all costs. For my dad, that's just how he was raised and I think his worst nightmare would be talking about feelings or something.

So take that and then put a hobby/passion that clearly means a lot to your folks and yeah, those can really combine in unfortunate ways.

Personally, when we're not talking politics (my parents' version of sports) I will sometimes throw more serious or interesting questions at mom (as said, dad hates that so I don't push) and sometimes get interesting answers. It's effort and mostly a one way street but I try to remember they're not from a super healthy emotional era and even if they might at times be open to it, it does not come naturally to them (or me if I'm being honest.)

Don't know if that early morning ramble helps but I hope it does.

That's me lol. I love programming a lot, and if I don't, I'm either drawing or playing splatoon. I just don't have a switch in my head that tells me "you must know about the news" or "go see how your friends are doing". Not really that I don't care, but as long as my family is fine and I have nothing to say to them, why bother?

My compromise with that was to get stuff to do together. Video games or board games are a good enough idea.

It sounds like they're deeply invested in their hobby (which is great) at the expense of other things (which is not great), and I'd say that is relatively common. It's a shame that it isn't a hobby that you share, but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing.

When you say "let's just sit and talk," what are you trying to talk about?

I’m feeling this way about a lot of people in my life right now. In my opinion, it is a combination of a splintering pop culture (we aren’t all following the same things), splintering foundations of identity (even facts seem to be subjective these days), and simply being overwhelmed.

Most media is selling doom these days, and the source of that doom is completely contradictory based on who is selling it. If you want to talk about something serious, you inevitably wind up parroting your sources, or eliciting others to parrot theirs. The more you dig, the worse things get, until the argument feels personal.

Under those conditions, subjects like sports seem like a safe option that is unlikely to expose a raw nerve.

I find that with a lot of sports enthuisists, some make it their entire life, so there are no chill times. One guy even said are you into Hockey? I say No, never watch it and don't follow a team. He proceeda to tell me intricate details about a game he watched last night.

I grew up in a family of medical doctors, it came with its own set of similar challenges. Every problem discussion always revolved exclusively around solutions or practical harm reduction. I suspect God forbade the doctors from talking just for emotional support.

Every problem I ever had (completely normal ones included) was medicalized and pathologized, neatly classified and wrapped in a set of actionable instructions: "this is how you get better, this is how you allow it to get worse".

I still remember coming home from school and sitting down at the dining table, eating my sausages with buckweed, while my dad, mom and older sister discuss methods and techniques to install a urethral catheter in a person with a broken phallus.

It wasn't good or bad, it was just weird I guess. Hey, at least I am not scared of blood/trauma/desease, and in a some cases I believe it allowed me to stomach helping people in need, when other people would turn away out of disgust or disturbance.

Not even sports. Every holiday, everyone in my immediate family has their face buried in a laptop or a game console. I was the same way when I lived at home and saw them every day, but I'd think with the distance, we'd want to catch up a little more 😭

My family is just uncommonly antisocial, though. Even the ones who live together can go years without speaking to each other. I've tried board games, card games, and multiplayer video games, but ultimately I feel lonely when I'm around them.

Have you just straight up told them this?

My brother was hooked to World of Warcraft and either didn't talk because he was playing or talked about WoW. I stopped calling him. He ditched the game a couple of years ago, but our relationship was permanently altered.

Not everyone is an extrovert. Spending hours doing nothing but making small talk is legitimately excruciating for many people, and it has nothing to do with "skills." Having a premise for social interaction besides "let's grill each other for hours" is socially inclusive.

After a certain point of familiarity there just isn't much left to say.

One of my uncles is always extremely into collecting something but the topic is changing every few years. First it’s board games, then geocaching, then geocoins (a subset of geocaching), then it’s lego. Now it’s a soccer club but just the merch, he never talks about the players or games. He lives in a small apartment so he puts stuff in self storage or even in the basements of other family members... I guess it’s compensation for not achieving much in life but it makes that situation even worse.

There are a couple people who I refer to as my best friends, and they're even in a relationship with each other, but they debate/argue all. the. time.

On the outside, one would see this as a sign of incompatibility, but they both maintain as well as demonstrate this isn't the case, and, according to them, "a sign we met at the school debate club."

In any case, though they always had warmth, it always felt distracted, unless I too was debating with them. Their two main bonding activities are spelunking and one could say photobombing as I've mentioned, two things I don't have the physical/mental patience for.

No, but my Dad's an engineer, so we don't really talk about anything, lol. We work on projects together for fun as a middle ground.

If you live near the beach, go to watch the sunset. They'll have fun playing in the sand, tire themselves out, and then you can talk.