Think of pleasantries as a conversational fuzzer, it's what people do while they try and find more interesting pathways to take the conversation down. I put my

Think of pleasantries as a conversational fuzzer, it's what people do while they try and find more interesting pathways to take the conversation down. I put myself in situations where there's nothing better to do than talk to people. Absolutely awkward at first, but I learned to revel in it. Most people want to talk. A little hack for this is picking more extroverted people to chat to. You might think because you're not as extroverted yourself, that they won't want to talk to you. They probably want to talk to everyone, about anything, and you'll start picking up on things they do to keep the conversation rolling. Stuff they've picked up from years of experience.