Practice. You are a human. You've seen someone comment on the weather before. Small talk helps people learn enough about each other to feel comfortable communic

Practice. You are a human. You've seen someone comment on the weather before. Small talk helps people learn enough about each other to feel comfortable communicating more freely. When you initially meet you do not know what sort of person you're speaking with and what they may like or dislike. Providing some training data for interacting with this particular person to your brain can help it become more comfortable treading into "big talk" territory. What you can do to best move things in that direction should depend almost entirely on your unique self as well as the situation and whoever else is in the conversation. Start with whatever common ground you know you have, get a lay of the surrounding land, and then you can more safely prospect out for more stimulating topics. It may be tempting to codify the process of small talk, but you'd really be codifying the process of getting to know other people and letting yourself be known. This can be a valid strategy, but loses some degree of humanity. People are endlessly unique, and no amount of hard steps can account for the full set of factors at play. The human brain is an amazing machine for exactly this problem. Practice. It will feel risky, but you will survive, you will learn, and you will improve.