Reply #28: hmmm...

[Wetzelbill]

Usually I get into some of those things faster than that. I almost immediately will ask what someone is interested in. Within a few minutes. Because, that's what I'm interested in finding out. Maybe you may want to try to steer them towards talking about an identifiable subject a little earlier. I always seem to have conversations that start because of the arts or something like that. I might see somebody reading a book that I recognize or something like that. I'm not much of a small talk person really. I suppose the basics, name, where they are from etc. I might ask them about where they are from etc, but usually I get into things I'm interested in pretty fast. I get nervous otherwise. If I don't have a topic to talk about that I don't know anything about I get pretty anxious. So I usually try to find something they are interested in and correlate that to my interests. That way I don't just stand there like a lunkhead saying stuff like: "What's yer major...uh, cool." haha

I would say the sooner you can get into a good subject the better.