How to become more comfortable talking to strangers
The gap between deciding to say something and saying it can last an entire evening. And the thing eventually said is almost always fine.
The opening line carries almost none of the weight people give it. What happens after it carries all of it.
What is actually happening
Most of the difficulty is spent searching for an opening good enough to justify the interruption. That search has no end, because no opening is.
Meanwhile, the other person is not evaluating your opening. They are mostly relieved that somebody started, because they were doing the same search.
Why it happens
- Being rejected by a stranger feels disproportionately exposing, even though the cost is genuinely near zero.
- You are comparing your inside to their outside — they look comfortable, and you feel every hesitation of your own.
- Practice again. Most adults have few situations that require starting a conversation cold.
What it looks like
A work event where you know two people, both busy.
- You get a drink so you have something to do.
- You look at your phone for slightly too long.
- You identify three people to approach and approach none of them.
- You leave early.
- On the way home you think of several perfectly good opening lines.
What to do instead
1. Use the room
Comment on where you both are: the talk, the queue, the venue. It requires no cleverness and is the most common opening there is, because it works.
2. Ask something they can answer easily
"How do you know the host?" Give them an easy first move. A question they have to think about is a burden, not an interest.
3. Say something about yourself early
Two questions in a row feels like an interview. One fact from you turns it into an exchange.
4. Accept the awkward first minute
It is awkward for both of you and it passes. People abandon conversations during precisely the part that always feels like that.
5. Have an exit
"I'm going to get another drink, good to meet you." Knowing you can leave gracefully makes starting far cheaper.
Try this
- Say one thing to one stranger this week. A shop, a queue, a lift.
- Make it about the situation, not about them.
- Let it be short. It does not need to become a conversation.
- Do it again the next day.
- The aim is not a friendship. It is making the first sentence ordinary.
What it sounds like
Waiting for the right opening
You (internally): I'll say something when there's a natural gap.
You (internally): That gap was too short.
You (internally): Now it would be strange to start.
You (internally): I'll get another drink.
The search for a good enough moment is the avoidance. There was no natural gap coming, because there rarely is.
Just starting
You: Have you been to one of these before?
Them: First one, actually. You?
You: Second. The first one was better organised, honestly.
Them: That's reassuring.
The opening is unremarkable and it did not need to be remarkable. The third line — a small opinion rather than another question — is what turned it into a conversation.
Why this is hard to actually do
The anticipation is much worse than the event, and anticipation is what you experience most of.
Occasionally somebody is short with you. It is almost always about their evening, not about you, and it stings anyway.
If this is severe enough to organise your life around — turning down things you want to do — that is worth talking to somebody about rather than practising harder.
What it costs to leave it
- Opportunities that come through people do not come to you, and they are a large share of them.
- Avoiding it makes the next time harder, so it narrows slowly rather than all at once.
- You end up in rooms full of interesting people and go home having spoken to nobody.
Practise it
Reading about conversations is not the same as having one. Splivex puts you on video with somebody who disagrees with you, for twenty minutes, about one question. There is no score and no winner — the only question afterwards is whether either of you changed your mind.
Practise on Splivex →