There's a picture emerging that syncs up a lot with something I've learned in my real life interactions over the last few years.
When two people are interacting on a friendship basis, they should both be talking a roughly equal amount.
For whatever reason, I noticed that I had made a lot of acquaintances where our conversations are always the person essentially just giving me a long monologue. These "friendships" really weren't friendships at all. I was spending a lot of time with these people but they weren't really contributing much to my life, nor vice versa.
I kind of figured out that I had somehow learned to be a really good listener and not a talker in social situations, and that attracts a certain type of person: people who like to talk. Those people aren't necessarily always great friends for me. They might be, but in many cases, they might just be people looking for someone to talk to.
So now I always make sure that when I'm hanging out with someone and having a conversation, I talk about as much as they talk. Even if it's about something pointless or irrelevant, I just do it. That's how I filter the people who find me interesting or have things in common with me from people who just need someone to talk to.
I suspect a lot of people have been having this same experience that I had, only online, and the solution is probably the same.
When you're talking in person, you have an implied fixed amount of time for interaction. Therefore, both parties only touch on things that are important given that time restraint. With social media, we lose this natural content policing since its "always on".
And the monologues... Speech is about speaking in gaps, or waiting turns, or as you said - "talk about as much as they talk."
When you have seconds, minutes, or days to respond on social media... we start adding exhausting fluff.
It is not that simple. I had periods when I did not really wanted to talk and strongly prefered when the other person talked more. I liked listening them during those periods.
Conversely, when I was socially isolated long term, people listening to my flood of monologue were God send.
It all depends on what whose needs are at the moment.
It's not transactional like that. You know when you are with someone for whom "listening" is just another word that means "waiting to talk again," or when you're just a receiver for whatever they want to talk about.
Ah...transactions...that get's me thinking...someone needs to create a cryto-coin for this ("listencoin"?) which you receive by listening and then can spend to get other people to listen to you...
I think GPs point was that aiming for parity in time talked allowed him to filter out people who wouldn't listen to that flood of monologue when it needed to happen.
When two people are interacting on a friendship basis, they should both be talking a roughly equal amount.
For whatever reason, I noticed that I had made a lot of acquaintances where our conversations are always the person essentially just giving me a long monologue. These "friendships" really weren't friendships at all. I was spending a lot of time with these people but they weren't really contributing much to my life, nor vice versa.
I kind of figured out that I had somehow learned to be a really good listener and not a talker in social situations, and that attracts a certain type of person: people who like to talk. Those people aren't necessarily always great friends for me. They might be, but in many cases, they might just be people looking for someone to talk to.
So now I always make sure that when I'm hanging out with someone and having a conversation, I talk about as much as they talk. Even if it's about something pointless or irrelevant, I just do it. That's how I filter the people who find me interesting or have things in common with me from people who just need someone to talk to.
I suspect a lot of people have been having this same experience that I had, only online, and the solution is probably the same.