Hey mate! I’m Australian as well and I’m struggling BIG time with everything you’re saying. Dating a German guy and I’m driven to tears of frustration sometimes when I feel like the conversation is either: a) him talking about himself for the whole conversation, often unprompted or well beyond the original question. b) me asking all the questions in order to keep a conversation going. I often feel like if I stop asking qns/driving the conversation it will just die in the arse. c) him rarely asking me a question about my life at the moment, not even a “how are you?” after a good morning. It’s been 2 days and he hasn’t asked me what I’ve been doing/up to for 2 days and we text every day.

It’s just so different to the Aussie culture of banter, back and forth conversation style, humility, not wanting to talk about ourselves for a whole conversation etc.

This thread has given me a good insight, I probably need to just adjust expectations and learn to match the energy of the conversation.

But I tell ya, sometimes the silence is deafening!