I'm not sure what you're asking, so I'll go into detail. With initial encounters, I use patterns learned in the military: be excessively polite, speak only whe

I'm not sure what you're asking, so I'll go into detail. With initial encounters, I use patterns learned in the military: be excessively polite, speak only when spoken to, listen and observe. It's a pattern set that is designed to offend as few people as possible. (I do have different starting pattern sets for different things, such as one for church where the military one would seem weird, but point being, I use carefully-crafted starting sets.) If I don't interact with a person much, I'll keep using the same pattern set with them. But if I interact with a person enough, I get an idea of what they want, and I start developing a custom pattern set for that person. Example: I'll call people "sir" or "ma'am" by default. But my wife...hates that. So I never call her that. Ever. Not even when she's mad at me, and I fall back on excessive politeness. Having custom pattern sets can help me deal with a boss, or a difficult neighbor. The neighbor is a good example. She and I have different politics. So I will only make small talk and will not engage in controversial conversation topics with her. And I will end conversations quickly.