The only thing I knew about him was that he works in construction, because his work shirt said as much haha. I had no idea how to relate to the guy. Or even start a conversation.
Man do I say? I haven’t watched sports in forever and that normally always works. I wonder if he has kids. I can jokingly talk shit about my kids all day, but if I start with that he’ll think I’m fucking crazy!
Is he not drinking bud light because of politics or because the yeungling was at the top of the ice chest? He looks like he works out- should I ask him about it? Fuck, I don’t know shit about gyms. How do I follow that up?
Damnit I hate parties. Is he thinking the exact same thing as me? All my partner’s friend’s partners are country boys and this always happens. Why is this so hard? A third of my friends are country as fuck
“So, you listen to music?”
Fuck I’m an idiot
15 minutes of the awkward silence that comes from a dash of regular anxiety and a heap of how-masculine-do-I-need-to-be-right-now-to-relate-to-a-new-human-male.
Sorry if this isn’t appropriate for this sub but I like the concept and want to see more engagement and also this just happened.
I think most of us have been there at sometime in our past. It is difficult, for sure. I have had to take classes on how to do small talk in order to find ways through this, because I need to be able to work my way through these situations for my job. It is tricks like - you mentioned the guy works construction - so ask him what type of things he is building. How did he get into that position. Is construction what he has wanted to do his whole life, or how did he land that type of job. You need to ask questions that will provoke another person’s opinions (whether you like their answers or not) and usually they start to spill their personal stories quite easily. Share a few anecdotes when you can to keep things moving forward. But I agree - it is difficult and very uncomfortable.
Agreed - really all that small talk is trying to find common ground or similar interests with those you don’t know well yet.