How to talk to a stranger?

Make first conversations meaningful

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Personal Development

Last month on a flight to Bangalore I met a person with an interesting professional background. He works at a company that manages Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds. Let’s call him Daniel. Daniel was responsible for interviewing social entrepreneurs to see if their idea was pragmatic enough to be funded. He was also running a startup on the side which produces podcasts for content creators. We not only exchanged our Instagram handles at the end of our flight, he also gave me his personal number before we parted ways.

Do you want to to know how to strike up a conversation with a total stranger that ends up in you and them exchanging contacts or meeting again? If yes, keep reading.

But before we look into a 5-step procedure to strike a conversation, let’s understand why conversations with strangers matter in the first place.

Why?

1️⃣ Some of the best conversations: Talking to strangers comes with a possibility of coming across information we would have never known otherwise. The information could be about a scholarship we never knew existed, or about the best burger vendor in the city. Sometimes we may want an unbiased opinion on a topic that we are uncomfortable discussing with family or friends. A meaningful conversation about our career with someone who from our field may turn our current trajectory for the better. Possibilities are endless. I had one such conversation on entrepreneurship and life with two friends I made on a train.

2️⃣ Some of the best relationships: Your best friend right now was a stranger to you until we talked. In such random conversations we may find people that might stay in our life longer than we expect. They might become a friend, an employer, a mentor or a business partner. One of those strangers might even turn out to be our life partner!

How?

Here is a 5-step procedure which can help us in talking to any stranger and building our network:

1️⃣ Know why do we want to talk: Obviously we can not talk to every stranger we come across. It is important to figure out what interests us in that person. Daniel looked much older than me but was casually dressed like a college student. Seeing the possibility of talking to someone of my age sparked my interest to know if he had figured out what to do in life!

2️⃣ Find a common or relevant topic: The conversation has to be relevant. We can have random conversations with a friend but a stranger won’t be interested in having one. One can find common or relevant topics to start a conversation by being a good observer. Daniel had a five star when we were taking off and one when we were landing. I observed this and said:

Me: Excuse me, hi!

Daniel: Yes?

Me: Can I ask you a question?

Daniel: Yeah, go ahead.

Me: I observed that you had a five star when we were taking off and you’re having one now when we’re landing. Is there some logic behind it?

Daniel: *Chuckling* No no, it’s just that it is dinner time and I was hungry. Coincidentally I had them at taking off and landing. But, very observant of you to say that.

In some cases the stranger might share the same interest with you in topics like sports, web series, or songs to mention a few which can be a good conversation starter.

Note: Observe but don’t stalk. Stalking is observing but not doing anything about it which can make others uncomfortable. I’m asking you to observe, find a common topic and talk to them.

3️⃣ Pivot: Many a times it happens that a conversation dies because there is nothing left to discuss on a topic we figured out in the last step. We then sit awkwardly finding it difficult to utter words. In that case pivoting comes to our rescue. The chocolate bar conversation ended very soon between Daniel and me but from there I pivoted to a new question. I asked him, “Do you travel frequently between this route?”. He replied with a yes and started telling me why he did so. After some time I made a pivot to a question pertaining to his career which we discussed until we parted our ways.

4️⃣ Don’t be pushy: Even though I was interested in talking to Daniel, I did not talk to him until we started landing because I did not want to disturb him while he was sleeping. Nobody would like to be disturbed by a stranger, right?

5️⃣ Take action: I was having second thoughts on asking Daniel about the chocolate bar. It seemed out of the blue, I feared he might judge me and it could get awkward. To pause all this noise inside my head:

1. I thought to myself: I’m not going to die if I do this.

2. I started a countdown inside my head to get myself to talk: 5…4…3…2…1…go! And I went for it!

6️⃣ Bonus tip :- setup a call/meet again: We can’t have all the conversation in one go. The first interaction is like a warmup. Doing it less isn’t effective and doing it more is not beneficial. It’s the workout after the warmup that will yield impactful results. We can end our conversations with a casual commitment of talking again or meeting again, say over a cup of coffee, or lunch. When parting our ways I asked Daniel if we could connect over Instagram to continue our discussion on his work. Not only did he readily agree to connect, he also shared his personal mobile number.

Watch time 🎥

Long back I saw this TEDx talk by Malavika Varadan, a radio presenter, where she provided 7 ways to make a conversation with anyone. An intriguing watch! Hear her out:

Read alert 📗

How to be more confident while talking to a stranger? Here is a blog where I discuss 5 simple tips using which you can leave your mark:

Make your presence felt

Quote of the week

Author Linda Lambert on conversations:

One great conversation can shift the direction of change forever.

Get 1% better ❤

Try striking a conversation with a stranger the next time you travel.

Until next week, ✌

Jainuine