[nasir]

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

[wordpressed]

I'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.

[hnlmorg]

That’s a depressingly negative way to view people who are just trying to break the isolation of modern life.

[djeastm]

It is possible to treat someone as worthy of sympathy and still be annoyed.

[noisy_boy]

> while everyone else is just silently annoyed by them

And you know what everyone else is feeling how?

[simmerup]

Appreciate this question. For a moment I was almost infected by the commenters miserly attitude

[brailsafe]

I think this is a particular character in a particular context you're thinking about, but—aside from overtly bombastic loud people—if he can't tell that people are annoyed, how can you?

> thinking they're the live of the party, while everyone else is just silently annoyed by them.

Not saying this is you, but my impression is that people who lean into silent annoyance also depend on passive aggression, fueling it with resentment that they aren't as outgoing (or whatever) and deserve the attention instead, and those who are especially anxious and/or neurotic imagine that everyone else shares the apparent negative feelings, effectively acting as they imagine everyone else wants them to act. People have a hard time letting themselves just vibe and roll with it if they think it might make them less appealing by association. Maybe they are the life of the party, since it's not much of one if people can't pump some life into it

[Roark66]

While it is possible to overdo everything and being "too jolly" can come across as insincere, despite being raised in a culture where almost no one talks to strangers I was never annoyed by this. Not even once.

I don't doubt people that are, exist, but I highly doubt it's a high percentage and certainly very far from "everyone else".

[twic]

Intelligence is knowing how to talk to anyone. Wisdom is knowing not to.

[Night_Thastus]

Humans 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.

[asdfman123]

It's always a matter of finding the happy medium. Don't be completely drab, don't be goofy, be balanced.

[nasir]

There's a fine line between being/not being that person. Self deprecating humor is usually works best. Also, when "everyone else is silently annoyed" that means the person can also know that. So there's a feedback loop providing signal and if someone doesn't realise that then they become annoying.

[elzbardico]

On the other side, I've seen people that get anoyed with someone trying to have a good time and start subtly using their group influence to sour people against that poor sap.

It is like a crabs in bucket mentality mixed with in-group machiavellian politics.

[rootusrootus]

> almost always men

That detail is probably unnecessary.

[globular-toast]

I've encountered a fair few women like that too. How annoying they are is inversely proportional to how attractive they are, obviously.

[JSR_FDED]

This 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]

For 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]

The 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]

I 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.

[necovek]

I may suggest to answer genuinely about how you are instead of "how is life" — yes, my life is hard because of many ongoing family health issues, but I might still be OK in the moment. Or sleepy from a bad night of sleep, or hungry because I skipped breakfast. Or happy because I got my favourite parking spot. Or had a nice meal....

[JSR_FDED]

Say "I'm about to have coffee, so that's good :-) "

Alternately, instead of trying to prepare for every possible answer, you can constrain the possible replies significantly by being the one who asks the question in the first place. "How's your day going?" is only ever going to get some variation of "good" or "bad". You only need to respond with "great to hear that", or "sorrt to hear that, hope it improves soon". That's it.

[Anthony-G]

Great advice but that may not always work in Ireland. The expected answer is “grand” or something similarly neutral and succinct. The asker may not even stop to listen to your answer so you won’t have enough time to provide a decent response.

Your suggestion would work when both people are in the same place for some time, e.g., waiting in line for a coffee, or for a meeting to start or for a lift (elevator) to arrive, etc.

I sometimes go to concerts by myself and like to arrive early to catch the support act. There’s usually a gap of at least half an hour before the main act comes on stage and I make a point of looking around for other people who aren’t on their phone so I can start a conversation. In that situation, I already know we have something in common.

[jeffbee]

Being 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]

Happened 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.

[shevy-java]

> 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]

haha 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.

[asdfman123]

> 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]

> 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]

Depends what your job is.

[plewd]

> 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"?

[toast0]

I'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.

[nasir]

Even 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

[hn111]

Even written these jokes made me smile, you’re a natural!

[busymom0]

Same here. I wanna read more of these jokes by the author haha

[busymom0]

Your examples remind me of something I'd see Mr Bean do haha

[a3c9]

I 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.

[ajkjk]

another 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]

*most, sigh

[mnkv]

Just 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.

[ajcp]

"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?" :)

[mettamage]

I 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.

[tomjen3]

As a stranger - its also super annoying when random people want to talk to you.

[dpark]

That’s fair. You can decline to participate in casual conversations and be annoyed.

Most people don’t mind someone initiating a casual conversation in a non threatening manner. Most will enjoy it, at least sometimes.

I’m happy for the author here, especially that he was able to shrug off these awkward interactions and move on.

[stronglikedan]

As 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?

[IncreasePosts]

For every person like you there's 500 dudes who want something from the stranger - their money, their body, etc. People are standoffish because they don't have the context that you do regarding the interaction and it's unclear which way it's going.

[delecti]

How 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]

Or 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]

> 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.

[subscribed]

Oh, but I'm not opposed to joy or taking to strangers. I just respect that some may not want that for all sort of reasons, all valid to me, regardless of how superficial they are.

And notice the subtle difference: in response to your (IMO rather entitled) expectation that everyone should be open to talking to you, I said that the "world is not your amusement park", to which you responded shifting it slightly to "world is the amusement park for all of us" -- I agree with the latter, I just want you to not expect everyone behave like it was yours :)

All the best.

[soopypoos]

the flasher's fallacy

[nathanielks]

Consent is still necessary. People's opening line when talking to strangers should indicate whether the other consents or not.

[soopypoos]

Hey there, Mister!

[rimliu]

Why do people think that intruding into somebody's personal space is OK.

[margalabargala]

They're speaking with people in public, not following them into their homes.

[Izikiel43]

Don’t leave your house if you don’t want to interact with people

[gravatron]

This 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]

I don't have a stake in this thread, but I am stealing "maladjusted weaklings" (≧▽≦)