Possible Social Epiphany

This is going to be another one of those posts involving stuff that might seem obvious to most people, but strikes me as amazing because I've spent so much of my life in isolation. Anyway...

I was taking advantage of a lazy Sunday in a very long weekend and letting my mind wander, and I started thinking about a few of the seemingly successful social interactions I've had throughout my college years that ended in awkwardness. It usually goes something like this:

Person I either know casually or have not met at all approaches me and starts a conversation, we form a good enough connection for it to keep going, and it generally continues for a while. I have, on a few occasions, had conversations lasting between 15 and 30 minutes with people I had never really talked to before. Sounds great, right?

The problem is that after this first conversation, I usually end up never talking to the person again, and they seem to avoid me or just ignore me, even though I didn't say or do anything stupid or offensive while talking to them, and we parted on good terms. This has been a mystery to me for years, and is one of the reasons I get pissed off so easily at humans in general.

And then, a few minutes ago, it hit me: Social exchange theory.

Human social relations are based on a system of give and take. If people give their time and energy to you and don't get anything back, they'll see you as selfish and avoid you. How does this apply to the above situation, you ask?

Simple. In every one of these long-ass conversations, I was the one who had to be prompted to talk. I never started the interaction. And afterwards, I always waited for the other person to approach me again. Makes sense, right? They did it the first time, and we got along, so why wouldn't it happen a second time?

Again...social exchange theory. Maybe...just maybe...there's an unspoken rule that the person who initiated the conversation last time shouldn't have to do it again, and that the other person should step up and start one, keeping the social scales balanced and basically saying "hey, I care enough about you to take time out of my day and see how you're doing."

Can any of you with actual social skills verify this? It would explain so freakin' many of my problems, and I can't believe I never once thought of it until now. It's clear that I do, in fact, have some conversational skills, so maybe my inability to balance relationships is the main source of my previously mentioned connection problems.

On another note, the drumline is apparently going to Friendly's after rehearsal tomorrow night to hang out, and I'll be joining them, so this is potentially time-sensitive knowledge here.

UPDATE
Fuck. Now I'm all depressed after realizing how many friends I could have made by now if I had just talked to people instead of thinking "durr, they're avoiding me, so they must not like me, and it would just make it worse if I tried to interact with them again. Durr."

I'd like a do-over of college, please.

Fuck.