> talk to people about their hobbies, travels, creative pursuits, kids, etc. This backfires when you have more hobbies or travels than the other party. Also i

> talk to people about their hobbies, travels, creative pursuits, kids, etc. This backfires when you have more hobbies or travels than the other party. Also interests don't usually align (e.g "I spent last month looking for that one elusive comet from my DX-7512 telescope. here.. see this photo. What about you ? Umm. well nothing much") It's better to gradually start with some topic where opinions are likely to align. For small talk I do realize how important (and how easy once you've run this with 4-5 people) it is to find a hobby I enjoy, and pick sharable stories around it and back it up with some artifacts (like photos on my phone). I think it would help to come up with clusters of topics that are well aligned. Pick a topic from one cluster and see how it works, if not pick one from the next. If it worked, pick another one from the same cluster.