Don’t ask direct questions in day to day life At social events, which we talk about here, the norm is that strangers present themselves to each other. In day to day life, on the other hand, you can’t be as direct.

Ask a simple question about the situation rather than the other person To ease in, we can ask a question about the situation we’re in.

That gives us a reason to start talking, and it’s not too direct.

It helps to ask something that you already have on your mind. But if you don’t, you can use your surroundings or the situation for inspiration.

An example of a day to day conversation from last week Last week I ended up next to someone on the train.

I’d been wondering if they served snacks on board. That’s a natural thing to use as a conversation starter: A question about the surroundings I already have on my mind.

I asked her: “Excuse me, do you know if they serve snacks here?”

She responded with something like “Hmm. Yeah, they should!” And it was natural for me to ask a follow-up question. “Good, I forgot breakfast today.” (Both smiled) Me: “Do you take this train often?.”

Let’s go through some common worries about starting a conversation, and after that, I’ll talk more about follow-up questions.

2. If you worry about saying obvious things, know that small talk often is mundane, and that’s OK. The meaning of the actual question isn’t that important.[1] You don’t have to try to come off as unique or smart in your first interaction.

Rather, see the question as signaling that you’re friendly and open for interaction.[2]

In reality, small talk is often mundane, and people are OK with that. Small talk is just a warm-up for more interesting conversation.

3. Look at the direction of their feet and gaze to know if someone wants to keep talking There are a number of signs you can pay attention to: How to see if someone wants to talk to you.

However, it’s normal to just get a short yes or no answer to your first question. It doesn’t mean that people don’t want to talk to you, just that you have to give them a few seconds to switch over to “social mode”.

But if they only give short answers to your follow-up questions, it’s usually a good idea to say “thanks” or “nice chatting with you” and move on. direction of their feet and the direction of their gaze. If they look away from you a lot or point their feet away from you, it’s often a good sign that they want to end the conversation.[3]

4. Ask follow-up questions to get a conversation going To signal that we’re interested in talking to someone, we can ask follow-up questions.

In the example with the train, I asked: “Do you take this train often?”. That’s a simple follow-up to my question about snacks on board.

Rather than asking several general questions, like “Where are you from?” and then “How do you know people here” and then “What do you do”, follow-up questions usually dig deeper.

An example would be:

“Where are you from?” and then “What was it like growing up there?” and then “What do you miss the most from that place?”

Digging into a subject like this rather than asking superficial questions tend to make the conversation more interesting.