When someone makes signs that they're not interested in talk

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What do you do when someone starts to make signs that they're not interested in talking with you?

I've been reading the book "Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships" by Temple Grandin and Sean Barron, and one of the points in the book describes that when people don't want to continue that line of conversation their responses will be short, like "that's nice", generally one or two words, and they won't ask any questions back.

I'm glad to learn this, because I am bad at going on when people just don't want to talk any more. I do this more online than I do in person. I generally communicate more with people online rather than in person.

But I was just talking with a friend over facebook chat, and I was typing these big long sentences about what I was going to do for a singing test we have coming up, and what I was going to sing at a coffee house we're both going to. I started off by asking her if she was looking forward to the singing test (I included "ha ha" to indicate I was joking, neither of us are looking forward to this test) and she said a few sentences in return, and that was when I started talking about what I was going to do. Her responses became one word, like "nice" or "good".

I took this as a sign that maybe she didn't really want to hear me going on about myself, so I just stopped talking.

But what should I have done? Should I have asked her a question to try and draw her into conversation again? Or is it good that I just left her alone?

And how should I feel about this? I feel a little embarrassed, but really, she's probably not giving the encounter a second though, is she? She's certainly not stewing over what I said to her like I am.

Dots, in your situation, the thing that did not keep the conversation going was a lack of redirection towards the other person involved. When a topic is brought up and one person shares their thoughts on it, usually they then ask the other person what their thoughts are in exchange. You made some comments with what you were going to do, and perhaps then you should have asked about what she was going to do in turn. She started with the one word sentences as a cue that you were focusing on yourself too much and to redirect the conversation back on her.

It's not anything that you have defineitly messed up over, though, and most people would only see this as a minor error. I think if you spoke to this friend again, they would likely disregard it.

I didn't even think of asking her about what she would be doing! Thank you. I thought I had covered that by jokingly asking her if she was looking forward to the test, but now that you've said that I realize I could have asked her further questions on that.

Thanks, I understand what you're saying. I've known her as a friend for about 9 months now, and as an acquaintance before then, and she has done some nice things for me like inviting me over for dinner when she knew I was short on groceries. And I'm sure in the past 9 months I've made this mistake before and it hasn't driven her away yet, so I won't worry so much.

I will definitely know better what to do next time.

The thing to do in this situation is ask "are you busy? Do you want me to let you go?" That way you can give the person a chance to say what they need and find out for sure if they want to talk or not. If the person responds, "I'm not busy," then you can presume they still want to talk.

You can follow that up with, "it's just that I got the feeling you needed to go because you weren't saying much."

This always works for me.

I agree with this advice. I'd say bye too.

RL communication isn't so easy. At college a couple of weeks ago, I was talking to two girls. One of them had their arms folded tightly and looked uncomfortable with me talking to them other woman. I did a stupid thing and just stepped away and looked down. I didn't know what to do. They both thought it was strange, but didn't seem to mind. They both hang out with this guy I get on with in class - so what to do?