Hi, and welcome to La Vie Attachée, change your thoughts, change your life. I'm Peggy McKnight, and I'm continuing with the communication series. In today's episode, I will be sharing with you ways to talk to strangers comfortably. Now, this one definitely goes out for all you introverted types that really find it very awkward to talk to anyone and everyone, so listen up.
We spend our childhoods being told never to speak to strangers, but then discover as we grow up, we need to do just that, repeatedly. Some strangers are more comfortable to talk to, such as shop clerks or servants. Servants? No, not servants.
We have no servants. Where are we? Or servers in a restaurant. Others, though, are often more complicated, such as the strangers you meet in social situations.
Like just talking to anyone on the bus, they might not necessarily be as friendly or wanting to join in a conversation than necessary, or they might be glued to their headsets, for example. These are the people who have the potential of being your future friends and co-workers. Basically, they are strangers who do matter. Everyone matters.
So to some, meeting this type of stranger can be quite intimidating because you don't know who they are, what their history is, or anything about them. Take, for example, when I was at a market years ago, I was standing around, minding my own business, waiting for my husband to finish off his transaction at a store, and I thought I would step out of the way. I thought I was being, you know, quite helpful so I wouldn't be in amongst the crowd who didn't need to purchase anything. And all of a sudden, someone comes up right next to me and starts just talking.
And I look over and I think, who are they talking to? Oh, that would be me. Friendly enough person. But again, you just don't know who people are or what their past history is.
So if they're just shooting the breeze and passing the time of day with you in a friendly manner, why not reciprocate? How do you get past the initial intrepidation and talk to even strangers comfortably? Throw yourself into the deep end, kind of like I did, although I didn't invite it, they invited themselves. But that's okay too.
You know, don't be shy with something like that. If you've always had someone to fall back on, you're never really going to truly develop and take the plunge. You'll always use them as a crutch or a safety net as your safe go-to place. Go to new places alone, alone, so you're not tempted to stick with who you already know.
And I don't know about you, but I often find that if you're in an unfamiliar setting and the person that you're comfortable with who likes to talk all the time and you just let them talk, they really can take over the conversation and people will pick up on that. They know that you're either A, not interested or B, don't talk a lot, you must be boring, and then talk to the person who's just burbling on left, right and centre. So it is really important in order to develop the skill of talking to anyone and everyone, you do need to push yourself off the deep end sometimes in order to develop that skill. So I would encourage you to try and do it as much as possible, like going to a conference on your own.
You don't necessarily need to, if it's out of city and you have to fly there, you know, invite your significant other or your comfortable person along with you, but don't let them come into the conference with you. Let them do other things throughout the day and then you can regroup at night and, you know, swap stories of what each other has done and learned for that time period. Just make sure that in the environment that you're throwing yourself into, that you are on your own and you have to do this. It might, it may very well feel very, very extremely uncomfortable at first, but again with anything, practice makes permanent and it will become much easier and much more comfortable to you, especially if you kind of prep yourself up beforehand and psych yourself up with, okay, you know, I can do this.
I am excited to meet some new people, find out where they've come from, what they're doing, you know, things like that. Just become, join in and approach the event with a curious mindset rather than a closed off mindset. Then that will really start to help you grow and develop this skill of being able to talk to strangers comfortably. Make the first move as well.
If you're going to wait around hoping to be noticed, you might have a very long wait. Be bold. Start a conversation. Get up and join the fun rather than waiting to be invited.
Again, do what feels comfortable for you. If the conference is one that is full of energy, fantastic. But if you see everybody running to the front, it doesn't mean to say that you need to run to the front unless you want to. If that's something that has motivated you to do so, then go for it.
If you think there's no need to run to the front, then that's fine too. Especially if you're just starting out with pushing yourself to talk to strangers comfortably, you might not want to run to the front the first time around. Therefore, you might just want to take a step back and observe people. Observing is great, but also push yourself to join in conversations as well.
Learn the give and take of conversation. Ask a lot of questions. Get the ball rolling by discovering new facts about the people you meet. But also be prepared to talk about yourself, not excessively though.
Good conversation should have an ebb and a flow. Don't let it get too heavy in any one direction. And also, if you feel like it's trying to get blood out of a stone with some people, you know when to cut your losses and move on to the next individual. Don't waste an awful lot of your time and energy, especially with trying to develop this new technique and skill of yours with people who just aren't interested in you as an individual.
You'll know. You'll pick up on the signals and the vibes and maybe even the blunt words, but you'll know who's engaged and who's not engaged with you as an individual. But learn how to be friendly. First and foremost, you know, don't come in looking like you're chewing on a wasp.
You know, everyone can pick up on those bad vibes and, you know, it repels people. You want to draw people to you. So learn how to be friendly while initiating conversation. Know when to back off before you become too aggressive.
You don't want to be too overly enthusiastic and excited because they might think, well, you're a little too full on. But not everyone is going to want to talk either. If this is the case, then just let them go like I said earlier. Try to move on.
There's plenty of other people to talk to. Move on to someone else. And also make sure that you move on in a natural way that is not awkward or stilted, so it doesn't seem so obvious. Like, oh, I'm bored with you now.
This is a better person. I'm off to find out more about them because that's just rude. But also be you. There is nothing more compelling than someone who comes across as genuine.
Being authentic is a hundred times better than any role you could ever play. This means being you without pretense. If you're nervous, it's okay. You can even say something about it and make it into a joke.
Or just be honest. You know, say, oh, I'm sorry. This is my first time. I'm all alone.
I'm not used to it. Just bring them into your world. They're not mind readers, so let them know if you are feeling uncomfortable a little bit. Share that with them.
You'd be amazed at how many people can identify with these feelings. Know when and how to quit. If the conversation has died out or the interaction isn't going well, know how to escape. An I need comment is a big help, as in, excuse me, I need to use the restroom.
Excuse me, I need to have a drink of water. Or I need to talk to that man over there about something. Please excuse me. Can be perceived as a little rude, that one, but at least you are inviting them to excuse you rather than just walking off.
There has also been an occasion whereby we've been in a social situation whereby an individual has come in early. We've come in early to an event and they've gravitated towards us. And, you know, we thought, oh, wow, you know, they seem to be really engaged in talking to us. But all the while they've been casing the joint with their eyes.
You can definitely tell with their eyes and how they were looking out over the crowd and sussing people out, getting the measure of them and the size of them to figure out who am I going to talk to next. And this individual, no word of a lie, just literally walked off midstream of what I was trying to say. And I thought, well, that's just rude. And if there is a surefire way to turn people off immediately, it is to do exactly that.
If you want to repel people, just look around the room like you're not really interested. You're kind of half listening, giving some sort of social cues that like to think that you're listening, but you know darn well that they're not because their eyes are rolling around the room, figuring out who they're going to go next talk to with all the pretty people. But that is just not on. It's the height of rudeness in any social situation.
So make sure that you do not do that. All you need to do is just simply thank them for the interaction and move on. It was a pleasure talking to you about Hawaii. Thank you for the conversation or something along those lines.
Really nice