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Around 15 years ago I took on the challenge to start a conversation with random people to break through this barrier and train this muscle. What I started with
by nasir 5mo ago
Around 15 years ago I took on the challenge to start a conversation with random people to break through this barrier and train this muscle. What I started with was to chit chat with those I had already established an interaction. For example at the Starbucks I would say something to barista. Those interactions were short but broke the ice.
Later I went for random people in the street and that was quite awkward. There was simply not much I could work with (what I thought at the time).
This turned out to become a low stake effort to improve my social anxiety. Helped me build humour around it and eventually become comfortable
Fast forward to today, I can literally talk about anything to anyone. The main pattern I follow is to break the pattern and make a joke, be sarcastic respectfully or give a compliment. No permission just something they don't expect. Almost works all the time. It helps with confidence and also makes you realise its all in your head.
And it is fun indeed
- mettamage 5mo agoI had a similar challenge but more dating oriented (not fully though). I'm not at your level, but I want to be. Happily married nowadays, so it'd be a pure social challenge this time.
- plewd 5mo ago> There was simply not much I could work with (what I thought at the time). This has been my big blocker keeping me from talking to most people. I feel quite adept socially once I get going, but I can usually only get to that point through mutual interests or a solid conversation topic to kick off from. I seem to usually psyche myself out because most starters feels too fake or unsubstantive. Compliments make sense, but could you elaborate on "break the pattern and make a joke, be sarcastic respectfully"?
- ajcp 5mo ago"I did the same thing; whoever designed these doors was a sadist." - "Do you like that bag? I've been meaning to get a new one, I'm so tired of this one." - "Now see, if we were as good looking/rich/smart as him we could have figured that out." - "Is that thing broken again? I'm telling you, we're in the wrong business man." - "Nothing to do with talent, it's a money and equipment problem, we're awesome at this." - I've used each one of these in the past week with complete strangers, in neutral-to-unfamiliar surroundings, in passing, and the most hostile reaction I've gotten is "hahaha, I know right?" :)
- nasir 5mo agoEven though typing them out may make them stupid but here are a few examples thinking out loud. Remember the body language is quite important and as you do more you start feeling more comfortable in your skin. - Waiting for an elevator that never comes with two strangers. What I may say: I guess we'd be camping here tonight. Do you have your tent with you? - Embarrassing moment: I hit my head lightly to something in front of 5 people: Act funny saying Oh can someone call an ambulance. - Someone dropping yogurt from their spoon on their shirt and locking eye to eye with me realising I've been watching the moment: I would have an empathetic look and then act with an imaginary spoon picking from my own shirt and eating it. Basically the kind of mild jokes/acts you would do and say to close people would work on strangers as well
- toast0 5mo agoI'll share my secret. Rather than trying to initiate a conversation with others, make it easy to initiate a conversation with you. I started wearing hats outdoors to keep the sun off my balding head (I've had a sunburn up there, and I don't want another one), and the hat I had around to wear was from when I went as Ash Ketchum for Halloween. Or even just looking at my hat and smiling... Nearly everywhere I go with that hat, I'll get someone saying nice hat, or professing their love for Pokemon, or asking me if I've caught them all. This provides an opportunity for conversation and a shared interest. I can ask them if they're into the show, the books, the card game, the video games. How did they get started? What Pokemon is their favorite? Who's the best trainer? When did they start liking Jesse and James? Do they like old stuff or new stuff (I've got the OG hat from season 1). It takes almost no effort to wear a hat and it helps me use my social skills when I'm out and about. And keeps the sun off my face a bit, and is handy for napping at conventions. You don't have to be Ash Ketchum, any character hat will do. Also, bonus secret. When I'm sleep deprived, I get chatty... You may or may not, but if you do, use it for practice when it happens... and if you say something embarassing, you can always blame the lack of sleep. I was just at First Robotics worlds and the setup is harsh for sleep hygiene, but I had a ton of nice conversations with random robot people. Shared interest, opportunities and sleep deprivation combined. Otoh, much fewer notices of my hat at the convention center than I expected.
- ajkjk 5mo agoanother thing to keep in mind is that > try to talk to someone > run out of things to talk about > feel awkward or dumb is not really a bad outcome, physically speaking. IMO ost people's anxiety about things X is not "fear of X" but rather "fear of fear" or "fear of embarrassment": they'll avoid something because it could go wrong and then... what? what if it goes wrong? nothing physically bad happens except that you're uncomfortable for a moment. But it's your subsequent reaction to the discomfort that is the actual source of the issue, not the discomfort itself. Which is why a lot of progress on anxiety can be made by focusing on the response: find ways of practicing being in the situation and being uncomfortable to a survivable degree such that you can learn to not be averse to the situation and can thus start adapting to it.
- ajkjk 5mo ago*most, sigh
- a3c9 5mo agoI was in a similar boat, but recently started getting through that barrier. The thing that clicked for me is pretty simple: I was filtering myself and chipping away at that filter made a huge difference. For example, I was in the elevator with a neighbour and they were carrying a lot of mugs. I said "that's a lot of mugs" and we ended up having a quick conversation. In my case at least the conversation starters are all there in my head, but I'm discarding them hunting for the "perfect" one which obviously never comes and the moment passes.
- mnkv 5mo agoJust talk to them as if they were already your friend. Most of what you talk about with friends isn't just mutual interests and you start conversations with them all the time.
- shevy-java 5mo ago> Fast forward to today, I can literally talk about anything to anyone. Try me! Though it is a social skill indeed. But there are some people who are always weird, so I don't buy into the "I can talk to anyone" claim. For me it is easiest to talk to people who are like the dude in the big lebowski. People who rarely upset about anything. The true hipsters.
- nasir 5mo agohaha the dudes are of course the best. when I say "I can talk to anyone" it doesn't mean "Everyone will talk back to me". Which is fine and I don't care. For what its worth I'm glad not to have to talk to boring people. What I want is to have a laugh or an interesting intellectual conversation.
- rimliu 5mo agoWhy do people think that intruding into somebody's personal space is OK.
- Izikiel43 5mo agoDon’t leave your house if you don’t want to interact with people
- margalabargala 5mo agoThey're speaking with people in public, not following them into their homes.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- gravatron 5mo agoThis comment section really enforces the stereotypes everyone has of you guys, just safe-space seeking, maladjusted weaklings who play victim as a badge of honor.
- ykonstant 5mo agoI don't have a stake in this thread, but I am stealing "maladjusted weaklings" (≧▽≦)
- jeffbee 5mo agoBeing able and willing to talk to strangers unlocks the eventuality that you will one day start chatting with a person who also does that and it will be like the small talk singularity. Once a man approached me and complemented my bicycle, and I engaged with him, and since we were both waiting at the same breakfast counter without anyone else, we sat down at a table and had breakfast together, and an hour later I could have counted him as a friend. Uncommon, but exhilarating possibility.
- intrasight 5mo agoHappened to me out on a group training run five years ago. She and I are now engaged and will be getting married in July. When I still had a personal Reddit account, I would be on the dating and relationship subs and promote the idea to do something every week where you see the same people. even better do two or three such things every week. That's what I did, and I quickly went from zero local friends to dozens. The gym is a fine place to do that but only if you're doing classes where there's an expectation that people will be socializing. I made some of my best friends in such gym classes including my current best friend. She indirectly introduced me to my fiancé because she suggested I join a running club to train.
- JSR_FDED 5mo agoThis is such good advice! The expectation at Starbucks is that the exchange with the barista is super short anyway so you really can’t go wrong. Instead of saying “I’ll have the Danish”, try to turn it into a two-sentence exchange initially (eventually you shoot for a 3 sentence exchange with any stranger you interact with), say “which do you think is better, the danish or the croissant”?
- cj 5mo agoFor anyone that asks how you are doing, answer honestly! Or with something slightly unexpected or easy for the other person to engage with or laugh at. “Hi, How are you?” “Well I woke up this morning and stepped on my dog’s tail by accident. He was not happy with me, but we’re all good now - how about you?”
- tines 5mo agoThe issue for me is that I seem to really "page out" parts of my life that aren't relevant to the situation I'm in. If I were to sincerely answer the "how are you" question, I would have to pause for ten or twenty seconds to think about how I am, which obviously doesn't fit the interaction. Any tips on how to avoid this? I'm a chronic over-preparer and I've tried to equip myself with answers to every conceivable question and that's just exhausting, so I've wanted to avoid that.
- unholiness 5mo agoI think the answer is practice, for a few reasons. One is obvious: conversation is a skill. Just like a novice chess player can spend 5 seconds figuring out which squares the knight can move to while an intermediate player spots a fork to force trading a strong bishop or exposing an overworked queen, exposure to similar situations rewires your brain to work faster in those situations. Another reason, though, is to me one of the main benefits of social interaction in the first place: The brain rewiring also makes you think about what other people would think, want to hear, say to you, etc, even when they're not around. That sure can give you better answers in conversations, but more importantly, I think this is just genuinely a nice way for the brain to be. In the same way that dogs are happy playing fetch, humans are happy living with other people in mind. Maybe because it feels like not everything is your responsibility, or that you worry less about what you should be doing, or that you look forward to laughing about disasters later... I'm not entirely sure. Whatever it is, it's nicer than the alternative.
- tomjen3 5mo agoAs a stranger - its also super annoying when random people want to talk to you.
- stronglikedan 5mo agoAs someone who wants to have meaningful interactions even if they are brief, it's super annoying when I just want to offer a compliment or joke to a stranger and they think I'm trying to talk to them. Are they so selfish that a little chuckle or "thank you" is going to break them?
- soopypoos 5mo agoHey there, Mister!
- delecti 5mo agoHow does that make someone selfish? I'm sure there are judgements you could make against someone who would prefer to be left alone, I just don't see how "selfish" could be one of them. For me, one of the main motivations is suspicion of ulterior motives. If it really is just "hey I like your hat okay bye" that's one thing, and is generally harmless. But usually when someone approaches me they want something, either they're selling me something, or asking me to sign something. It's not that the initial comment is necessarily an issue, it's guarding against people pretending to have an innocent interaction as a foot-in-the-door technique.
- subscribed 5mo agoOr maybe they have one of the millions of reason to not want to talk with the strangers. World is not your amusement park, people are entitle to NOT wanting to talk to you as much as you feel entitled to talk with everyone.
- nathanielks 5mo ago> World is not your amusement park That's literally what the world is. It's the amusement park for all of us. Some of us like sharing our joy with others. It's up to you whether you are open to receiving it.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- wordpressed 5mo agoI'm not saying this is you, but i've also ran into a lot of those people, almost always men, often in their late 30s or 40s, going around talking to everyone cracking jokes and thinking they're the live of the party, while everyone else is just silently annoyed by them.
- twic 5mo agoIntelligence is knowing how to talk to anyone. Wisdom is knowing not to.
- Night_Thastus 5mo agoHumans are social creatures. We need socialization. It also helps keep us sharp mentally. You also never know what you might experience from talking to someone. You may make a life-long friend. Or learn about something you didn't know. It doesn't mean blab about things you shouldn't, being insensitive, etc - but isolation is not the answer.
- noisy_boy 5mo ago> while everyone else is just silently annoyed by them And you know what everyone else is feeling how?
- simmerup 5mo agoAppreciate this question. For a moment I was almost infected by the commenters miserly attitude
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- globular-toast 5mo agoI've encountered a fair few women like that too. How annoying they are is inversely proportional to how attractive they are, obviously.
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- wotsdat 5mo ago[dead]
- asdfman123 5mo ago> The main pattern I follow is to break the pattern and make a joke, be sarcastic respectfully or give a compliment I'm having to learn this about online dating too. My online dates traditionally don't go anywhere because typically they've been about just exchanging information, which is frankly boring to both parties. You have to (gently) riff and tease a bit or it's not going to go anywhere. If you're talking about your jobs, nothing is going to happen. Establishing that rapport is everything.
- pton_xd 5mo ago> If you're talking about your jobs, nothing is going to happen. That reminds me of when I first moved out of California and away from the tech scene after being immersed in it for some 10-odd years. People just don't talk about their jobs! They'd much rather talk about their interests, hobbies, friends and family, ... literally anything else. Their job is just not an important part of their identity. Was quite the change in perspective and honestly and took some getting used to.
- Chris2048 5mo agoDepends what your job is.