One too often believes that conversations needs a certain degree of skill, experience, and knowledge before one can participate. However, that's not the case. The question is not, "what should I say next?" but "what do I want to say next?". Conversations is purely a matter of self-esteem, skills and vocabulary are merely adornment and decorations.
Self-esteem, you can't eat it. It's just a simple firm belief in oneself. It's about thinking that your existence and participation is valuable, important, and necessary enough to look others eye to eye and speak with your own voice, without ever doubting oneself.
How will you know you have self-esteem? It's easy. You just observe your own mind, and if you ever notice yourself asking the questions "am I good enough? am I proper enough? am I doing it wrong?" then that means you don't have enough self-esteem to participate in any real conversations.
Participating in conversations in that state often makes one see people's messages as quizzes, something you have to reply appropriately and perfectly. Then that won't be conversations at all, it would be simply be an academic test. It is difficult to talk to someone without self-esteem. They won't ask questions, they'll rarely show emotions, and their replies end with a full stop, something difficult to answer.
It's not that they're not interested in you, it's that they're anxious, worried, and scared that they may fail this sudden academic quiz that they didn't review at all. Because of their vibe and energy, one can be easily tempted to see these people as somehow cold or weak beings.
If you have to convince and argue with yourself that you're important, that you matter enough to be heard, before you believe it, then that's a sign that you have reached dangerously low levels of esteem. You may feel like you're inadequate, lame, and inferior compared to anyone else. You may feel like you don't even deserve to ask for help. You may feel like you don't deserve good things. It's quite the distorted perspective.
When this happens, a person's first solution would be to possess things that would elevate their social status, like money, friends, and achievements. They will want to feel superior to others in any way, which will make it easier for them to convince themselves that they're important.
Unfortunately, this only results in an inflated ego trying to hide a low self-esteem. Furthermore, when one uses their superiority to interact to others, they'll soon realize that people will avoid them for bragging too much and being annoying. Thus, plummeting their self-esteem to the abyss once more.
However, if they don't resort to this solution, they can still choose the solution of overdependence, where they become overly dependent or attached to someone who will care for them and solve all their problems for them. Yet once they realize that their clinginess and overdependence are not really cute and just annoys people more, their self-esteem will plummet to the abyss once more. This is the stage two.
At some point, their inflated ego will soon pop like a balloon when they experience repetitive mistakes and failures, further exposing their miserable state. Depressive symptoms begin to occur and one feels more distracted and fatigued than usual. Once in a while, they become highly energetic and emotional similar to a manic state, where they'll do a lot of impulsive things to make their life a little more interesting.
Thus, they begin to progress to Stage 3. Symptoms of addiction begins to occur. They start breaking their usual routines and habits. Their impulsiveness are getting stronger and unpredictable. Their relationships begin to suffer, their memories slowly fade and become blurry. It is now difficult for them to do anything else other than instant gratification or impulsive chaotic movements. Their perspective in life darkens even more, they begin to have thoughts that other people secretly dislike or hate them, leading to symptoms of Paranoia.
Now, they proceed towards Stage 4. As this continues, they will begin to experience more psychogenic symptoms and feel physically sick. Maybe they'll try one last attempt to feel alive by abandoning morality and ethics, doing even crazier and more impulsive things. This will give them enough energy and motivation to keep going indefinitely without getting sick, although at the cost of their relationships. However, if these people still choose to do nothing, either they will get hospitalized, begin to have suicidal tendencies, or their sanity starts to crack — leading to further illnesses. At worst, this may result in death.
Such is the downward spiral of hell that can start so innocently from questioning and doubting one's self-worth. One should always be wary of the questions they ask themselves. Not all questions lead to the truth, sometimes they lead to hell, sometimes they hide the truth.
"It's not uncommon for some plants to wither and die young, such is life."