How to handle lack of reciprocation
TL;DR: Someone I’m pursuing romantically has problems with asking any questions or follow-up questions, keeping the conversation going after it hits a dead-end, and acknowledging what I say before sharing her own piece. This all makes me feel tired and like I’m carrying too much. We talked about it, and not much has changed.
Basically I (F22) have been talking to someone (F19) in a romantic context for a few months now, and while there’s some positives, I’m concerned about her level of effort, engagement, and reciprocation.
What I mean is that she doesn’t ask me questions unless I prompt her into it (and even then she’ll be like “uhhh I guess I’ll ask this”), she doesn’t really ask follow-up questions when I tell her things (she’ll usually just jump into sharing her piece without acknowledging what I said first), and whenever the conversation hits a dead-end, it’ll stay dead until the next day (unless I think of something else to talk about and revive it myself).
And it’s just hard because I feel like I’m putting in a lot of effort to ask questions to get to know her, keep the conversation going so it doesn’t burn out, find things to talk about that’ll be interesting to both of us, etc. but I just can’t do it all myself. Also it does kinda hurt that she doesn’t ask questions or follow-up questions since that feels like a lack of interest in getting to know me more, I have to take the initiative to share things about myself unprompted.
And I actually did bring the issue up once where I told her that I can’t carry conversations alone because I get drained, I need more reciprocation and equal effort. And she said she understood, and will try to think of more to talk about, but largely not much has changed, and that conversation took place a month ago.
But again she does have positives, like she responds quickly, her responses are detailed and interesting, we share interests, we have the same relationship goals, and we have similar styles of humor so we joke around a lot, so that’s why I’m not necessarily defaulting to just cutting my losses.
What do I do?
(Btw since someone might clock it, she is autistic, which can cause differences in communication. But, I’m autistic too, and I feel like that has made me care *more* about being fair and equal, rather than leaving the other person to carry the conversations, knowing it’s a lot for them to handle).
Posted Jul 6, 2026, 8:55 PM UTC