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.
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.