If every conversation turns into their podcast, you’re not a friend. You’re the audience.

Some conversations only run in one direction. You ask, they answer at length, the question never comes back, and by the end you know their week in detail while they could not say a thing about yours. It is rarely deliberate, since plenty of people genuinely do not notice. It still leaves you doing a job rather than having a friendship.

Try going quiet for a stretch and see whether they ask anything. You can also say straight out that you would like to tell them something. How they handle that request is the part worth watching.