Talking to people

[jack]

I'm getting better at chatting to strangers on the train, provided they want to talk about the Riemann Hypothesis and guaranteed basic income.

But I still want to get better at finding topics of conversation intermediate between "nice weather, isn't it?" and "so, lets argue about politics and god, and lets talk about set theory". Any suggestions for finding interesting but not-too-contovertial topics, if I'm talking to friends or acquaintances and don't want to force them to carry the conversation?

Comments

[eudoxiafriday.wordpress.com]

Food! Can be sensitive / need to avoid diet talk, but enthusing about food in general or talking about historical food ("when I was small my Mum made the *best* birthday cakes ...") is something I've found to work well with lots of different people. Stuff like "Have you heard of any good places for X cuisine? My parents are visiting next month and like that kind of thing." (When work lunchtime conversation gets too heavy, a few of us start talking about cake/enthusing about food instead. Though now that I've brought a crossword book in we do the crossword instead :) )