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Comment by rokhayakebe | Hacker News Reader

Or just be genuinely interested in people. Everybody has something interesting and if you dig you will find it.

If the goal is to make the conversation interesting/smart, it starts with great difficulty because what sounds interesting/smart to one may be just dull/stupid to another.

Most people may feel a little reluctant when someone else is digging, but that is only because they have grown an instinct to honestly disbelieve anyone may be truly interested in knowing them for nothing.

Since we can't worry how people feel about our little inquiries, we can only ask and be honestly interested in knowing more about others, discovering more.

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Except for those who would genuinely want to be honestly interested in learning more, but ... aren't. Because wanting to be interested isn't the same as being interested, and it often shows - creating a conversational awkwardness that's even worse than it otherwise would have been.

Hackers will hack just about everything except their personality even when it can be to their advantage.

I do not go to Starbucks with the intention of striking a conversation with strangers and try to find something interesting.

I do go out with the intention of talking to whomever I want to talk to even if my second thought after realizing this is negative, and even if I am afraid of others reaction.

It fails most of the time, but I think over time I will get better at it.

It seems to me that if someone is just honestly interested in meeting people and hearing whatever about them, then they are by nature rather social and extroverted and scarcely need advice on how to start conversations. For most people who aren't social butterflies, conversations are either simple social gestures or they actually have a point. When they have a point, you should ask what interests you, and if it interests them too, then you've found someone with whom a conversation could be worthwhile.

> For most people who aren't social butterflies, conversations are either simple social gestures or they actually have a point.

I think that's only partly true. In my life I've gone from extremely shy, 'introverted' and lonely to socially active and 'extraverted'. Both were not optimal and thankfully I think I've found a balance that works for me.

An important part of finding that balance was to accept that for a lot of my friends, especially the extraverts, 'simple social gestures' and small-talk type conversations do have a point. They need those.

And I'd be a bad friend if I didn't learn to do that occasionally, in the same way that they'd be bad friends if they wouldn't let me monologue about some subject I just spent a week reading about in isolation (where 'bad' means partly 'not a nice person', and partly 'just not a great match as friends).

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