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Oh come on. It's hard to get a conversation going. A lot of people may start to talk about the weather, and it may lead somewhere else. Also take your own responsibility for the talk.. You can't expect people to just come up with brilliant topics without when knowing you.
I think one mistake people make is that they disqualify others too quickly. Good relationships takes weeks and months to develop. I don't remember the first conversations in any of those relationships because they don't matter.
I agree. I'm autistic and I spent a long time learning basic conversation skills. However, what I had gotten good at was trite and boring small talk, a meandering rally of nothingness. For a while, I thought that this was it, and I became quite isolated because it didn't feel worth it to engage with most people.
A few years ago, I discovered a whole new "skill tier" of conversation skills: finding "leads" that may lead to levelling up a conversation. Finding those routes through to talking about things that both people find interesting, things that build friendships. I was lucky to meet people who were very much on my wavelength who helped me to build these new skills, and now I'm aware of it, I wonder how many people I discounted prematurely because I wasn't giving them much to go on or I missed some cues from them.
Here's where I wish I could share my one neat trick to people struggling with the same issue, but as you say, it's hard to do. I think it's important to acknowledge that it's hard, and that sometimes forming connections is about luck in the circumstances.
Exactly, once you discover that hidden skill tier, it's like realizing how you do to keep a conversation going.
It is going to be hard, which is why people have a hard time coming up with something interesting just like that. Need to find that hidden skill tier.
Often it takes quite few bad conversations first, because you have to see what works with that person. But don't stop trying. :)