Few people are naturally gifted conversationalists. Odds are against you in this matter. But that hardly means that you have to remain stuck in hesitant confusion every time you sense a potential opportunity to connect with new, interesting people, make friends, or find romantic partners. Many of us have difficulty starting conversations. Especially with strangers. But with some guidance (which I would like to share with you) and determination (which you have to master up yourself), you can turn your shy and awkward self into someone, to whom people would feel happy to open up to. So, whether you want to get to know people from your local gym you frequent or get to know your co-workers better, I am going to arm you with some knowledge.
The most common two sources of word-shyness with strangers are anxiety and lack of skill. And they usually go hand in hand. Anxiety itself has a few components. You might be putting pressure on yourself, basically hoping to start a perfect conversation, and putting too high a price on “failure” conditions (maybe convincing yourself that what you’ll say is going to come off wrong for the person you’re about to talk to, and you’re going to make a fool of yourself). Maybe you expect a particular outcome, which is too rigidly set for this conversation, and the success threshold is too high (and how are you supposed to reach it, now?). Or you might be putting yourself for too narrow constraints as to what is acceptable to talk about, to start a conversation with. The lack of skill is simply being unaware of the rules of the game. And the deep darkness of the unknown breeds demons, which scare you into constraining all otherwise playful and engaging ways to connect to people.
Dealing with anxiety
If you have a shyness, when it comes to talking to strangers, you have to overcome it, as it reduces the number of available possibilities to connect to people and to have meaningful relationships.
You’ll likely have to change your perceptions about your place in this whole conversation-starting business. For starters, don’t try to come up with some kind of perfect ice-breaker one-liner. You don’t want to set too high standards for your performance, especially in the field you are relatively inexperienced in (and you probably are, if you struggle to break the ice). Go easy on yourself, start small, and allow yourself to make errors and fail. You’ll, that the price for a mistake in casual social interaction is negligible.
Then, don’t have concrete expectations about what the result of talking to this or that stranger will be, let the process take its natural course. It’s not like every small talk with someone who frequents the same gym as you will lead to a long-term friendship.
And the last of flawed perceptions about yourself will be rigid self-censorship. You don’t have to set too strict constraints for yourself, as to what is acceptable or not to bring up in conversations unless you have good empiric evidence that it is or isn’t. Common sense still applies here.
To summarize the points above – focus less on yourself in the process of talking.
You’d likely have to change some of your perceptions about others in the conversation, the people you talk to. One common problem for shy or anxious people is excessive fixation with what should they say. It often gets to the point that you end diverting all of your attention from what your partner is saying, and directing it to your own distressed feelings.
The bottom line here is – you have to pay more attention to what others are saying.
Those are the basic principles to get more out of your attempts to speak and connect with others, and to make you more successful on average. Practical real-life advice on the topic of verbal communication will be explored in the sections below.
Common mistakes in starting a conversation
Joking mode. Out of the general population, a small minority will be interested in getting into joking mode with strangers. Among them, about half will enjoy whatever you think is funny. Others won’t be inclined to continue the interaction, to put it mildly. While most people appreciate humor, that is not something they participate eagerly in with someone they are not too familiar with.
Talking about boring, mundane experiences. Discussing TV shows you’ve watched recently, meals you’ve eaten, dreams you’ve seen last night barely qualify as a time-filler. It is more of a time-waster. Find ways to engage interest in the other person. More on that in the following section.
Talking too much and listening too little. If you pay some attention to your partner, you might find out something you haven’t known prior. More importantly, showing genuine interest in the other person will help to develop a connection in the future if you so desire. This process, however, has to be reciprocal, you don’t want to stand and listen to complaints from someone with dissatisfied life, whom you barely even know.
Complaining. And while we’re at it, complaining to a stranger is one of the worst ideas for an ice-breaker. If you have a common problem, caused by inconvenience you both experience at the same time (and space), like getting stuck in a long line of people, then yes it might be a good starting remark. Complaining about life problems is best done to people you know well, and who already like you. No need to add negativity to someone else’s life, you don’t know how much do they have already.
Getting stuck in one topic. That’s where the problem of talking too much rears its ugly head and breeds even more obstacles for you. If you listen, you’ll find things you could expand the conversation with strangers organically into different topics, relevant to both of you.
The point of small talk with a stranger is to break the ice – to introduce yourself, and get to know something about that person, something not too personal, but what makes that stranger stand out. And to make the other person feel good in the process.
Improving your conversation skill
Chances are, you have to go through some grind, to get skilled in talking to people. The good news is, the conversation is a learnable skill, you will definitely get better at it, once you get yourself into practicing it deliberately and with the right approach.
The primary technique for starting a conversation is to a) introduce yourself, and b) ask questions until you find a point of mutual interest.
Some of the best question for it are the following:
What is your name?
Where do you live?
Do you have a family?
What do you do for a living?
Do you have hobbies?
Do you practice sports?
Do you enjoy watching sports?
Are you planning to travel somewhere?
I agree these questions seem awkward to ask a total stranger. But the motivation behind it simple. Understand that the person you meet will feel just as awkward as you, it is in our nature. He or she will want to talk about something interesting or demonstrate their knowledge of whatever they’re good at.
And your job here is to make that task as simple as possible to a stranger. And nothing is easier for any of us, than talking about ourselves. Your questions will signal interest to that person, and most people will interpret it as social confidence and openness.
The second objective is to keep asking questions until you’ve found topics of common interest or at least something interesting enough, that you might want to get into.
The secondary technique for you, as an aspiring conversationalist, is storytelling. It’s a topic that requires an article of its own, but once you master it, you will be able to capture minds and imaginations of people and make your life experiences especially relatable to others, invoking feelings and emotions you’ve experienced yourself (if you are willing to share them).
Armed with the knowledge of even just one of those techniques, all you have to do is to practice it systematically in relaxed social environments you find yourself at – your gym, office kitchen, classes you attend, whatever. Additionally, you might want to seek out those relaxed social environments, to broaden the pool of potential opportunities for interactions.
Why should I bother talking to strangers?
If you approach starting conversation correctly you’ll achieve one of the main goals of it – you’ll make that person feel good. Which in turn will make that person like you.
And a person that likes you is more likely to introduce you to good opportunities, which in turn could improve your life. Probably substantially. A person who likes you is also more likely to want a relationship with you. And if you have to complain to someone due to less than pleasant circumstances of your life – you’ll get empathy and support from someone you’re bonded with by friendship.
Your mental health is dependant on the quality of your personal and intimate relationships. If you lack them now, maybe it’s time to find them or expand that list. Don’t worry, nobody can’t have a big amount of true friends. But you need to have at least a couple, you owe that to yourself. You deserve a happy life.
