i used to be so anxious and shy i could hardly say a word to my best friends from childhood. you embarrass yourself over and over till it starts to get a little easier. now i can talk to a group of people i dont know well with only a little anxiety

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?”

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.

Yes. No.

I could have a conversation with a stranger, but I would prefer not to. I don’t find silence uncomfortable and I’m perfectly happy to wait quietly.

I don’t like it when people try to chat when I’m having my hair cut, or waiting for something. Small talk is a drag and I really don’t care about any of it.

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 think that’s something you can learn. It definitely takes some training. But speaking from own experience, I think I started out as an introvert and in my very fist job I had to talk to lots of random strangers each day. And I adjusted. Nowadays I can start conversations easily, do smalltalk… I mean I’m probably still the same person and sometimes I like to talk and sometimes I don’t like to open up at all. But I know what to say, how to keep a conversation going or end it if I like and it doesn’t take that much effort. And I think that makes me a bit more at ease. Knowing I have that skill available. But it certainly took me some time and effort to get there.

And I’m still not particularly good at mimicking an extroverted person. But I don’t care that much anymore. If I make mistakes, or I struggle with some conversational partner, that’s just what it is. It makes me uncomfortable. But at some point I’m going to have other problems to deal with and I’m going to forget about 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.

Sure! I do it all the time when I’m either shopping or at the salon 😃 I love making people laugh or cheering them up!

To OP - as others have said, you’re doing it now! Not everyone may be comfortable with initiating conversations with strangers but it can be something you can gradually learn to become more comfortable with!

I really, really dislike social situations that don’t have formal structure to them. Professionally I can talk to strangers no problem, because roles and expectations are set, similarly I can go to a tabletop gaming convention and play games with people and it’s fine.

I struggle in situations where the rules are more nebulous, but I still manage it. It just takes practice. I definitely lean on my husband for that type of thing when I can though.

Yes I can. No I don’t do it often.

I have ADHD, and struggle to remember small details or infer the same things other people do from dialogue. This means that outside of structured discussions, I struggle to maintain a conversation that interests others most of the time. My friends are the ones who don’t make an issue of my shift between a lack of engagement or intense engagement and my completely forgetting things that other people things are extremely important like remembering names. I have had the same few friends for a couple decades because making new friends is fucking hard.

So when it comes to strangers, I tend to only have conversations a few times a year and almost always when traveling. Basically, if there is no chance of seeing them again and I have an easy out from the conversation I am comfortable starting one. Random people on public transport, in lines at restaurants, people at conferences, etc. Stick to whatever they bring up and try to keep up, consciously avoid dominating the conversation, etc. This all took a lot of practice over decades to become comfortable with and it takes a ton of work so I don’t do it often. The only reason I need to work at it is that most people think the things my brain doesn’t retain are important and that is generally what makes them think I’m not listening or participating. If I never see them again, then it isn’t important if I screw that up!

I am also an excellent presenter, and get tasked with that frequently. I don’t feel stressed in front of crowds because I practiced at it a lot and slowly became comfortable with it. For a lot of people social interaction takes practice and making ‘mistakes’ and learning that they need to adapt and not worry too much about whether the other person is enjoying the conversation, only if they give obvious signs they want to leave the conversation.

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.

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.

If I absolutely have to, yes. If I don’t need to, I avoid it and prefer to mind my own business. For example, I sometimes attend some happy hour events for people in my field of work. Obviously you have to have some small talk, but I usually only engage if someone strikes a conversation. If not, then I’m happy just eating and drinking while watching whatever is on the bar tv. If I’m attending a show, concert, or game, I don’t strike a conversation with strangers at all.

54m here who is neurodivergent.

Yes, I can have a conversation with a stranger, but that was not always the case. It took years of practice to get to the point where I could be in a group or one on one and actually contribute.

The issue is, it takes SO much out of me. Where the people I’m interacting with have nice processing centers in their brains doing the bulk of the work for them in carrying the conversation. The processing centers that deal with social interaction are inactive in my brain and I have to actually think about everything going on. Which is a lot of energy to spend on conversations that really have no actual merit, other than just being social.

Think of it this way, do you remember how much energy you had to expend thinking on the last difficult test you took at school? That’s how I feel after social interactions. Because I have to do virtually the same amount of thinking in that setting, that most people use on a Physics exam.

Even with my wife and kids, I have to take breaks from them. While the years have given me habits and known behaviors that I don’t have to think about with them and keep our relationships healthy. I still have to do a lot of active processing to interact with them.

It sucks, but it is the way I am and always will be.