Comment by cj
6 days ago
I follow an informal rule of "never be the first person in a conversation to bring up work/career" (or weather, or family/kids).
If you play the rule like a game, it's kind of fun.
After starting with a personal trainer, I made it 10 sessions (10 hours) of small talk before he finally asked me something that led to a conversation about work.
It's a lot more challenging (but way more rewarding I find) to initiate conversation topics relevant to the context you're meeting the person in, and waiting for the other person to bring up the boilerplate conversation topics if it's important to them.
That is horrible. Conversations are most easy to start around weather, work, and family. (Travel, where you live, hobbies, and sport are most of the rest.)
you don't help anyone avoiding conversation.
That’s why it’s a game.
If I run out of interesting conversation starters, I default to weather/work/family and carry on.
I simply prefer to start with unique/contextual topics first.
that makes sense.
bluGill: "how is your family" $another-guy: oh, still dead after that train crash. or bluGill : "what do you do for work" $another-girl: why are you asking? Do you have a problem with that? ... fun conversations indeed.
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I hate asking people what they do, but it's hard to know ahead of time what questions will get an excited answer, so it's sort of a fall back.
I feel like asking 'what brought you to <city>?' is a framing that doesn't box them in so much, they can respond with non-work interests or volunteer about what they do if they want