Talking to new people or striking up conversation with ‘strangers’ can be nerve-wracking, even for the most confident and charismatic among us.
We’ve pulled together a handy guide to help you get started (or keep going!).
10 conversation openers
Open-ended questions are your secret weapon for opening up conversation. Getting the other person to talk and sharing encouragement as they do (‘interesting’, ‘tell me more’, ‘ah I see’….),
is far easier than trying to entertain them with your own stories.
Below our top ten questions to strike up a chat:
- Do you know anyone else here?
- Where are you from originally?
- How long have you lived in this area?
- What made you sign up for this event?
- Have you been to this venue/class/group before?
- Do you have anything planned this weekend?
- How’s your day been so far?
- How’s your week going?
- Whereabouts is your work based?
- Have you been practising/following/enjoying [shared activity or interest] for long?
- What do you most like/enjoy/want to see here today?