It depends on the situation, like that question would be natural to ask if you're meeting someone for the first time, but if you're at work talking to a coworker you don't know super well but have talked with before, it would be more natural to tie it in with something like "so what did you do on the weekend?"
But honestly, most people love talking about themselves, so I don't think it could go that wrong.
A good thing to have, and this takes practice, is self awareness in conversation. Like, if you ask something and the other person makes a confused face, you jump in and go "sorry, that might be a weird question", but you say it with a smile or a little laugh so that it doesn't seem like you're on edge.
I was a lot worse at conversations when I was younger, what helped me immensely was going on a solo backpacking trip where I stayed in hostels and had to have tons of conversations with strangers. Obviously that's not a thing right now, but I wonder if there's some way for you to practice having conversations with strangers? I know online is a lot different than real life conversations but there's a subreddit called /r/CasualConversation, maybe you could practice talking with people there?
They’re a little direct, but on the right track. I’d suggest asking in more roundabout ways, since often people don’t know themselves what they’re passionate about, or they’re hesitant to talk about it.
The cool thing is, you can come up with laundry lists of questions beforehand, and think it through well. You only need a handful for conversation starters. Hypotheticals are good.
One of my favourites is “If you were guaranteed a steady salary for your life, what would you do?” It gets people fantasising about what they’re passionate about. Then from there you can ask “how come?” to whatever answer they give. That should give you enough to spin off into whatever they’re interested in.
If you wanna go down the work route, you can ask what they do for a living, and then follow up by asking what the best and worst parts of the job are. People generally like making value judgements, and it gives you a chance to empathise with their shitty, capitalism-induced situation, and gives some insight into what they like.
Something to keep in mind, as @evilgiraffemonkey says, is that weird questions can be salvaged with some self-awareness. A little bit of awkwardness and discomfort can work out, so long as you exercise some social nous and pull back and patch up.
If you want to practise, then anonymous chat apps like Omegle and Whisper can be decent. It’s mostly all bored people, and there’s no social cost for trying stuff out.
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It depends on the situation, like that question would be natural to ask if you're meeting someone for the first time, but if you're at work talking to a coworker you don't know super well but have talked with before, it would be more natural to tie it in with something like "so what did you do on the weekend?"
But honestly, most people love talking about themselves, so I don't think it could go that wrong.
A good thing to have, and this takes practice, is self awareness in conversation. Like, if you ask something and the other person makes a confused face, you jump in and go "sorry, that might be a weird question", but you say it with a smile or a little laugh so that it doesn't seem like you're on edge.
I was a lot worse at conversations when I was younger, what helped me immensely was going on a solo backpacking trip where I stayed in hostels and had to have tons of conversations with strangers. Obviously that's not a thing right now, but I wonder if there's some way for you to practice having conversations with strangers? I know online is a lot different than real life conversations but there's a subreddit called /r/CasualConversation, maybe you could practice talking with people there?
They’re a little direct, but on the right track. I’d suggest asking in more roundabout ways, since often people don’t know themselves what they’re passionate about, or they’re hesitant to talk about it.
The cool thing is, you can come up with laundry lists of questions beforehand, and think it through well. You only need a handful for conversation starters. Hypotheticals are good.
One of my favourites is “If you were guaranteed a steady salary for your life, what would you do?” It gets people fantasising about what they’re passionate about. Then from there you can ask “how come?” to whatever answer they give. That should give you enough to spin off into whatever they’re interested in.
If you wanna go down the work route, you can ask what they do for a living, and then follow up by asking what the best and worst parts of the job are. People generally like making value judgements, and it gives you a chance to empathise with their shitty, capitalism-induced situation, and gives some insight into what they like.
Something to keep in mind, as @evilgiraffemonkey says, is that weird questions can be salvaged with some self-awareness. A little bit of awkwardness and discomfort can work out, so long as you exercise some social nous and pull back and patch up.
If you want to practise, then anonymous chat apps like Omegle and Whisper can be decent. It’s mostly all bored people, and there’s no social cost for trying stuff out.
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