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.