That's more true for me on LJ than one-on-one; in person I can put out feelers to see if someone's interested before diving right into a topic, and I know I need to pick some topic or other because there they are wanting to talk to me. Granted, this doesn't work nearly as well for people I don't see in person much; having to initiate contact myself is awkward, and now that you mention it, I guess that is at least partly because I don't know if they really want me talking to them.