Yeah. I haven’t always been very comfortable with it, I made active effort to learn ways to make it easier.

I also lived in the Midwest for a while where asking someone “How are you doing” is an actual invitation to conversation and not just a response of “fine”. I learned some people are very open to chitchat with strangers, some people aren’t, and it gets pretty easy with practice to tell which is which noting body language and those first few words they respond to you with.

Also, you’re doing it now, OP. Way to go. Forum conversations like this totally count. Maybe next level up for you is some IM chatting with someone from a hobby group you’re interested in.

I have conversations with strangers all the time. I believe everyone is capable of this through the power of alcohol.

Very well. The other night was at a fall festival and they had some carnys pushing carts filled with toys and balloons, you know, plastic swords, plastic guns, snaps, stink bombs, and blow up guitars, etc., and they all had a bunch of flags for sale, including, at the very top, a bunch of made in China trump shit.

I saw one carney, who was black, and he did not have trump shit. So when it was time to let the kiddo pick a toy or something, I said he could buy from that carney. And I struck up a convo by offering that it was his lack of Trump shit that got him this sale; an important thing, I think, to tell retailers of this sort. We dapped it up for a second and he was looked at me like, “come the fuck on, obviously there’s no trump shit on my cart.” He said one of the other Carneys told him how much more money he could make, and how he asked the other guy back, “man, are you fucking stupid?” Nice guy.

I noticed early in my 20’s that my social anxiety had gotten to a point where I couldn’t casually chat with random people. So I made an effort to do it anyway even though the results wouldn’t be favourable for a while. It took a few years before I noticed it didn’t take much of a push any more to start. I’m 40 now and while I still don’t enjoy talking to strangers, especially when just making meaningless small talk, I at least don’t have a wall of pre-dread anymore to climb in the case that I do need/want to talk to a stranger. Like if they dropped something, or if I want a product in a store that is not currently stocked on the shelf.

yeah, no problem.

i’m a social butterfly when i’m drunk and somehow managed to transfer this skill into my sober life over the years.

i’m even pretty good at phonecalls now. those terrified me my whole life. now i often prefer them over emails/texting.

I do now, tho I prefer to read in silence. What helped me, was to remind myself, that in the grand scheme of things this conversation and any opinion this stranger will have of me is irrelevant.

No. Between being really poor about remembering names and whether I’ve met someone before, and always being suspicious about their motives for approaching me, it never goes well.

This past summer I travelled down south and it was a strange experience - people were friendly and wanted to chat, and even be helpful, and not once was there an obvious scam. I’m too old to be discovering something like this but I’ve always been with family or friends or something, or visiting tourist spots, but this time I was wandering in “normal” places. After a week, I was finally open to small talk without suspicion, but what an experience!

Yes, lots. And not because I’m an extrovert. It’s a very commonly used life skill and I wouldn’t, for example, be able to do my job without it.

I hate it. I’m just generally afraid of saying the wrong thing, so I end up saying very little until I feel that I know the person well enough to share more.

However, I worked in customer service and sales for 20 years and learned how to fake it.

It’s a performance, just like a singer or dancer, it’s exhausting, but practice makes progress.

Every single day. I am someone who people just really open up to. I don’t know what it is but I have the craziest conversations.

Sure! I mean, we’re doing it right now, right? ;)

Or do you mean exclusively in person?

I’ll be honest with you, I don’t get out much (health issues) but when I do, I don’t LIKE talking to people, but I do, because it takes so little effort to make someone feel better about their day.

It also helps that pretty much everyone here has a tattoo and that’s a good icebreaker.

“Wow, nice ink! How long have you had it?”

I’m not good at it, but I’m capable of holding a conversation with say a store clerk or random people in line.

I have conversations with strangers all day every day. I’m an uber driver. Best job I’ve ever had.

If you having trouble knowing what to say in a conversation is what you’re getting at, I can relate to that. Once in a while I’ll have found a stranger whose standards I can meet, but they’re so few and far between that no tangible friendships have been made.

I’ll be frank, if you don’t have friends or a partner and you aren’t willing to leave your comfort zone to talk to people then to me it indicates a lack of willingness on your side. Why don’t you want those enough to overcome your faults and just keep at it?