I guess so, but you'll get a lot more out of things if you do :) For me at least I find it just gets so much easier the more you do it, pretty soon you'll find

I guess so, but you'll get a lot more out of things if you do :) For me at least I find it just gets so much easier the more you do it, pretty soon you'll find that "hi, I'm XX, what are you working on?" comes out as easy as anything. But no one will expect anything in particular from you so don't worry about it. Another bit of advice that might help, hacker spaces and user groups and the like have mailing lists. You can join those before you go along. It's totally normal for people to post a "Hi, my name is XX and I'm interested in YY. I'm planning on popping down sometime soon so see you guys then" and you will most likely get at least a few welcoming replies when you do that.