Comment by technothrasher
18 hours ago
I usually just start with a small harmless joke about the current situation we're both in. People either don't respond to it, and I leave them alone, or they engage and a conversation commences.
18 hours ago
I usually just start with a small harmless joke about the current situation we're both in. People either don't respond to it, and I leave them alone, or they engage and a conversation commences.
Let's hear the joke.
"Your tax dollars at work"
Applies to almost any situation, really.
All of these have to be told light-hearted, as observational "jokes". Not like you are actually annoyed. You're just making light of a situation.
"I guess the bus is just never on time here, huh"
(Stuck in line at the grocers) "Friday evening rush-hour"
Same kind of thing with whatever you are observing, at the Doctor, in the gym, waiting for the light to turn, etc, etc.
It's all shit jokes if you can even call them that. But the purpose isn't to start a standup routine, it's to share a situation with a stranger and open up the floor to conversation. You are basically just indicating to a stranger: "Hey, I'm open for conversation", they can then choose to respond or just ignore the remark. Then you go from there.
Exactly this - yesterday I was in line at the grocery store and the cashier and customer ahead of me were complaining about our long, frigid winter (not normal for this region) - I joked about how if the long-range forecasts were correct we will be up to +18c next Saturday and we all laughed about the launch straight from winter into "summer". And we all moved on - not everything has to be an in-depth conversation.
Turd Ferguson; that's a funny name