Talking about normal/fun activities like you described are safe conversation topics that you can use with nearly anyone. If you don't know much about someone, t

Talking about normal/fun activities like you described are safe conversation topics that you can use with nearly anyone. If you don't know much about someone, then these topics are easy ways to get a conversation going and learn more about each other. Once you do know someone a bit better, you can tailor your conversations to more specific interests that you both share. A work colleague would probably be interested in talking about patches you submitted to open source projects or research papers that you read even though 99% of the general public probably wouldn't be interested. I don't know exactly why the other commenter said "you must be fun at parties," but I'd imagine it's because the parent commenter deflected from talking about things he actually wanted to talk about. Being fun doesn't have much to do with the content of what you talk about. It has more to do with you showing genuine interest and excitement for the things you do. If you don't like watching movies or playing video games, then it's very difficult to have a fun conversation about those things. CiPHPerCoder listed four things he enjoys doing over his weekends. Those topics are definitely not mainstream, but they do overlap with my interests. I would love to have a conversation about those things with him because it also adds to the variety of conversations I get to have.