Many of us on platforms like this are introverts, or autistic, or have social anxiety, or for whatever reason, have trouble meeting new people or engaging with strangers. If someone wanted to engage you in conversation, what topic would you be happiest to talk about?
My most recent meaningful conversations at the bus stop in the past year were:
- Maslow’s hierarchy of needs with a middle aged gentlemen who struck up a conversation having seen my work badge
- a guy who’d had his phone stolen reflecting on the ways it had allowed him to be more mindful of his own thoughts and disengage from toxic people
- a homeless woman who lived at the bus stop for a while with her husband discussing her personal safety as a homeless woman (her husband needed to go do something that wouldn’t take long, and he had waited for me to come out and wait for the bus to go do it, and came back before the bus arrived).
And I made friends with the homeless guys outside my last apartment by stopping to pet their dog (and later stealing wound care supplies from work for it).
I find other people interesting for the most part, and have a large enough breadth of knowledge to at least ask interesting questions about most things. Tradespeople in particular know some fascinating things
I once asked a man in a work vest who was marking the road what the colors were for and he said the different colors were different utility lines (water, power, etc). My follow-up question was how he knew where they were and it turned out the pole with the paint sprayer also had a special metal detector that could pick up on each line’s unique type of tag.
And the guy who fixed my dryer had an utterly wild list of things that he’s pulled out of vents and explained that the little vent covers on the outside of the building were specifically designed to safely prevent endangered birds from nesting in them since they like the warmth but can get injured or damage the vent in doing so.
I generally find that tradespeople like being asked questions about what they do. I don’t think a lot of people ask. And if they don’t I apologize and keep it moving.
I’d like to talk about the awesome employment opportunity they have for me that pays decently, has good benefits, and is doing something beneficial for the world, hopefully nonprofit.
If that’s not an option, I guess cats.
In this post: dozens of people not understanding the assignment and discussing ways they get out of talking to others.
People, this is why you’re depressed and anxious all the time. This isn’t identity and character, this is avoidant behavior. Challenge yourself, be that person in your imagination who does the approaching and striking up conversation, what do you have to lose?
edit: stop replying if you’re happy being asocial, I don’t care.
What little inner peace I have once the constant negative thoughts are confirmed by talking to other people.
i am not depressed or anxious.
I still don’t like talking to people, because they are boring and really selfish. I like talking to people who aren’t selfish and rude, who are doing interesting things, but those people are very rare. maybe 1/10 people I meet is worth my time, and maybe 1/50 actually is enjoyable and fun to be around such that I enjoy their company. I actively date, and socialize several times a month.
the more i socially isolate, the better my mental health and mood generally are. I absolutely loved the pandemic those were 2 of the best years of my life. I haven’t hung out or met anyone new in two weeks now and I am in a way better mood than I was around the holidays when I had to do a bunch of social stuff.
Our goodbyes
Conspiracy theories. Talking about conspiracy theories with a stranger is the best fun ever. Because then we can walk away after a good satisfying conversation but then neither of us nutcases have to deal with each other anymore.
But, then you need to have looked into insane conspiracy theories, somewhat. Do you mean making fun of flat earthers, or the people who actually believe birds aren’t real, or listening intently to “UFOologists”?
I mean I AM a conspiracy theorist, about the logical stuff. It makes for great conversation whenever you find someone who has also gone down those rabbit holes.
But flat earthers and “birds aren’t real” is insane territory and hopefully nobody really believes that stuff, those are just jokes.
Video games
Pizza
Hobbies. Be it music, video games, tabletop games, or even sports.
I dragged my introverted ass to 10 houses on my street in an attempt to find a shred of US political solidarity in a red state. I got 7 no answer, left 1 Ring Camera message, 1 polite declination, and 1 prison guard who “doesn’t really watch the news”. I felt awkward as hell but I remain excited about talking to enough people to find 1 or 2 who are like “You think this is all insanity too?!” This isn’t the “topic” OP solicited but as an introvert it feels valuable to share here that I felt good after forcing myself to break that ice.
I am easily spun up talking about myself. Getting me talking isn’t too hard, but I start to feel introvert exhaustion once I think maybe I’m talking too much or I find reason to doubt the person wants to talk any further.
Movies/shows have been good topics for me. Enough people have seen Spaceballs, Interstellar, The Pitt, Marvel that people’s inner nerd pops out like a Jack in the Box when their fandom comes up. A coworker and I once had nothing in common, but I brought up Mystery Science Theater 3000 offhand and she cut me off to shout “I LOVE EMMESSTEE THREE KAY!!”
In the not too distant future…
I’ve thought about it a bit. Someone talk to me about WavPack. I fucking love WavPack! It is the best lossless audio codec.
food! food is such a great communicator of who you are and what you’ve experienced
The British have this down to a science;
- Start with pleasantries “you good?” Essential, always say “I’m good” if asked this or similar regardless of your mood, use tone to convey the actuality if you wanna be unguarded
- Talk about the weather
- End with the pleasantries, something that implies you will see em again, even if you know you won’t
Talk about the weather
A wild meteorologist appears.
Travel. Where are you going next, what’s your favourite country, all that. Met someone yesterday who’s going to Vegas, and has booked a helicopter trip to the Grand Canyon and tickets to a Barry Manilow show. She hasn’t been there since the 80s and is pretty excited. She and her husband usually holiday in Turkey.
I have brainworms from getting so heavily involved in local political organizing over the last two years so probably that. Talk about their life and if there are issues troubling them and then maybe how those issues are probably downstream of capitalism and how the only way out is hand in hand, arm in arm with your fellow man fighting for a future that is for everyone.
Anyway like I said brainworms.
anyone who works in local politics who has any sanity doesn’t last very long. i have worked on it in the past a few times, and after about a year or three you just give up. my sister has been mayor of her village of 1000 people, and basically can’t wait for her term to end because the most vocal people are the ones who are the nastiest and stupidest.
when a smart person has a complaint she can reason with them and tell the limits of what she can do and they generally accept this. stupid people however, get hostile and will threaten legal action and often so so far as to waste their own tax money they are paying, on the town lawyer having to file to dimiss frivolous lawsuits. people also lose their shit over what goes on on public property and their neighbors property over which they have no legal rights. she’s even had people who had their own trees fall on their own houses after a bad storm and try to sue the village over it for not ‘identifying dangerous trees in the city’. and then when she has the town remove dangerous trees on town property that are a liability, those very same idiots, come out and PROTEST that the town is removing trees and destroying the environment. you cannot reason with these people at all all you can do is politely nod as they ramble to them and ignore them.
it’s INSANE. Just go to any local town or city meeting/hearing. at least 30% of the time involved will be complete idiotic weirdos going up to am microphone and yelling about microchips in the water, when the topic of bumping up the budget of the roads dept to fill some extra potholes. or there will be a discussion of re-doing a local park and someone will go up screaming about how making the park nicer for children will make them weak Satan worshipers because they grew up without any parks and they are good Christian.
It definitely takes deliberate balancing to do it in a way that doesn’t lead to burnout. Its an incredibly common problem in these orgs because people are passionate and throw themselves in completely without stepping back and making sure it’s healthy. I am working through this currently trying to delegate more things and guard more of my personal time for me and not political organizing.
for sure. i ran a community space for 8 years, and i had to quit because it became a bit of a political football and was attracting really unhinged people, both advocating for, and against us. i really could not tolerate it after about a year of that nonsense and it turned what was a fun positive place into a miserable one.
the most insane people were the one who had really no genuine interest in what we were doing, but just wanted to use as ‘proof’ of whatever weird conspiracy nonsense they believed. we were simultaneously ‘corrupting the children’, despite the fact no children were involve, BUT also we were ‘not doing our duty by not helping the children’ because we were an 18+ space. It was horrible. a lot of identity politics idiots got involved and accuses of being white supremacists, and then we were accused of pushing the queer bipoc agenda. one week we had this crazy young black woman harass us and then a week later it was some old white boomer lady…
we were just a makerspace/toolshare…
Some people just have broken brains man its wild. Sorry you had to deal with that.
there were some increasingly crazy people on the inside of that group. I didn’t have the energy to fight a battle on multiple fronts. Crazy people have infinite energy.
I decided to shift gears and now I go out into the woods and fix up hiking trails, but even there we come across crazy people who try to place traps to hurt people. We have one parcel of land where someone is cutting trees so that they fall on people hiking. This person has been doing this for years and never been caught, but we have to keep going in and cutting down trees because of this psycho. Thankfully it’s only one person in one place though and the trees and rocks and dirt don’t flip out at you and most people who see us say thank you.
local political organizing
Fingers crossed its not pro-trump pro-ICE bullshit
issues…downstream of capitalism … arm in arm with your fellow man … future that is for everyone.
These don’t sound like MAGA sentiments to me, so you can probably breathe easy.
Places. Where people grew up, where they have traveled, where they have lived. Maybe even where they would want to go. This leads to other topics and lets you talk about something not too personal to start.
