On our old WoW guild application form we included:
“Please rank all of the Star Trek captains you know from best to worst”
and then gave them a nice big empty text box to go to town in. Some answered seriously, and exhaustively. Some only knew Kirk, or didn’t know any at all. Some chose to go off on a rant about Star Wars being better, or include a joke or tell an anecdote about their relationship to scifi.
Whatever the answer we always learned something about the person and that was a good jumping off point if they got accepted. We did get the occasional humourless “wtf this is stupid” type response but, shockingly, this was rarely the only reason we had for denying such applications.
Have you seen that ludicrous display last night?
I had a friend in college that would just say, “So, what’s your deal?”
I’m shocked at how well it worked. Open ended, so you only get what they’re willing to talk about, but they’ll still be ok talking.
Sounds agressive. Doubt it would work in all circles.
“What’s YOUR deal?” sounds pretty aggressive, “what’s your DEAL?” sounds borderline inflammatory, but I think there’s a very neutral delivery without particular stress that sounds more like an open ended question than an aggression. Still, probably not great around fully sober folks.
It might work in a college environment but if as an adult someone would ask me that I would not take it kindly.
So, what is your deal? What have you been up too?
What did you say about my mother?!
very neutral delivery without particular stress that sounds more like an open ended question
So. WHAT’s your deal?
Delivery had a lot to do with softening the approach.
Definitely not for all situations, but to be fair, no approach could be.
My usual go-to is to ask what their latest/current obsession is. It works really well for a few reasons:
- it’s nice and simple to ask - it doesn’t require a monologue/wall of text to set up, and it doesn’t require you to know anything about them to ask it;
- it’s both as personal and as low-stakes as they want it to be. They can give very intimate, in-depth answers if they feel like it, or they can just mention something like the latest film they enjoyed. There’s no risk of making them uncomfortable by asking it;
- it lets you filter out boring people who don’t really take interest in anything;
- assuming they do have interests, it often gives you plenty of opportunities to dive into deeper conversation;
- it’s often engaging for them because they get to talk about something they’re passionate about;
- it’s often interesting for you because people talking about things they’re passionate about is awesome (and often attractive).
- it’s pretty much always relevant and fresh because their latest obsession will change over time. This makes it particularly great for things like dating sites/apps because people’s bios will often be out of date and/or they’ll have talked about the things mentioned in their bio so much that they’re kind of sick of them.
I’ve actually had multiple people on dating sites tell me how great a question they think it is, and that they’re going to use it themselves in the future. So obviously it’s not just me who thinks it’s a great question!
I sometimes ask what has been keeping them busy, usually like that, I find it doesn’t work. What sort of phrasing do you use? Or is what I asking like really different from what you are referring to?
Pretty different, I’d consider it. Something may keep me busy, while not being passionate about it.
I (body) am normally busy bc of work-related shenanigans, but I (mind) am obsessed with the latest game installed on my PC.
That sounds really cool.
@fellow_germans: How can I express this in german? The literal translation “Was ist deine aktuelle Obzession?” doesn’t sound right, because of the different meanings of obsession. Maybe “Welches Thema beschäftigt dich gerade?”, though this also doesn’t seem to have the correct ring to it.
Have you ever danced with the Devil by the pale moonlight?
I haven’t, but I’ve always wanted to. Do you recommend any favorite spots?
Crossroads at midnight when the moon is full.
Have you ever fallen into a tank of toxic chemical waste?
“What defines a sandwich?”
Mate, are you looking to start a conversation or a heated debate?
Is a loaf of bread a bread sandwich?
No, a bread sandwich is a sandwich in which the filling between two slices of bread is itself a thin slice of bread.
A recipe for bread sandwiches is included in the invalid cookery section of the 1861 Book of Household Management by Isabella Beeton, who adds, “This sandwich will be found very tempting to the appetite of an invalid.”
In November 2011, the Royal Society of Chemistry, after calculating the cost as low as £.075 per sandwich, named it “the country’s most economical lunch”, offering £200 to whoever could create a cheaper edible meal. Due to an overabundance of submissions, the offer was closed seven days later and the £200 given to a randomly selected entrant.deleted by creator
TIL you do NOT call a piece of meat on a bun a sandwich in AU/NZ… That’s called a burger. I argue a burger, regardless of its own definition, is still a sandwich.
A burger is a sandwich.
Something that’ll lead to fairly flippant, casual, low-stakes chit chat about completely unimportant bullshit. People like getting a chance to get a sort of baseline reading of you, so talk about flippant, dumb, unimportant things for a little bit. Preferably ones that they are 100% certain to have recently experienced themselves, so it can go back and forth smoothly.
Given the diversity of humanity, this is a fairly short list. Weather, food, free time hobbies, etc. If they’re like a student, or work in a particular industry, that opens up a lot of options. But for a stranger? Just got a few to pick from. So, just pick one.
They call it “small talk” for a reason though. The real purpose of the talk has absolutely nothing to do with the actual subject of the discussion.
The real purpose of the talk has absolutely nothing to do with the actual subject of the discussion.
That makes it really confusing. What’s a good question, then? Ask about the weather?
Honestly? The weakness of the standard small talk topics is how common and banal they are, which bores people. I recommend them because they’re so easy, and the cost of boring people for a few minutes is fairly small.
But it’s not ideal. For ideal you need something flippant, unimportant but also novel. Since novelty is now valued though, that means you can’t be using the same thing over and over. Other people will probably have used it too, if it works, and that means its not novel.
So, the actual best ice-breaker topic? Some clever, interesting or amusing observation about something in your immediate environment that you can both look at. That adds thinking on your feet to the mix though, so is more of an intermediate level of social skill. Best to have the boring fundamentals nailed down first.
So, yeah, I’m perfectly comfortable leaning on something as dull as the weather. And it makes decent enough practice at chit chatting. But eventually picking more novel subjects that also fit the requirements is better.
The actual question would usually go something like “Hey, did you see that?”
What init system do you use on your Linux distro?
What’s your favourite dinosaur?
What’s your favorite dinosaur?
Thanks to Jurassic Park it was the Velociraptor. But then I learned that their depiction was totally wrong. But then again my children taught me that they are even cool as murder chickens. So everything is well.
But still, I think the Emu is cooler.
Who are you?
What are you doing in my bathroom?
My sister showed me a fun drinking game recently:
One person closes their eyes until the other person/people decide on a number 1-10.
After they all agree, the person opens their eyes then asks the group to rate an item from a category 1-10. Do this with 3 different categories. At the end, the person tries to guess which number was agreed on.
So, the group could agree on 7/10 and the guesser could ask “types of beers” and the group could say lagunitas, skulpin, etc …
Other good questions involve “people we both know”, “sexual experiences”…
Around this time of year one of my best conversation starters is “What’s your least favorite Christmas song?”. Everyone (at least here in the US) has at least one Christmas song that annoys the shit out of them, but you’ll get tons of different answers.
Or you’ll get murdered because now that evil song is stuck in their head until next June…
Hm… maybe a good ice breaker but a bit negative isn’t it? Why spend energy on somethin you don’t like ?
Because people are opinionated. It’s a fun way to hear someone speak passionately about something. Gives you a sense of who they are.
But people are just as passionate, or hopefully even more so, of things that they enjoy. Why go into negativity when you could be listening to their positive passions?
It’s pretty common to bond over dislikes. Besides, disliking something isn’t negative, and there’s nothing wrong with being negative even if it were.
British people are famous for discussing the weather as small talk. British weather is 90% shit. We’re still alive.
So I don’t think negative questions are a bad thing.
Slade’s Christmas song. Every fucking year without fail it comes on in supermarkets and has done for decades.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I am a team manager, on status meetings on fridays I always ask if someone has good plans for the weekend, and on monday I ask how was your weekend.
I get a lot of silence, and most of the time I tell some bits of what I did, but from time to time someone tells something about what they did.
I think that is good for the team, since we are all remote, it’s a little bit of socializing and have something to talk about other than work.
At my old organisation we always had mandatory “check ins” at the start of weekly meetings where everyone took turns saying whatever was on their heart and how their day was going.
Always a bit awkward at first with a new team, but a month in and people would really open up, and it was really helpful as manager to figure how people were holding up. Especially during covid/lockdown.
Any examples of stuff that felt awkward at first and then was less awkward as time went on?
Just your typical stuff.
When you first start and can tell on their body language that they aren’t fully comfortable and don’t know what to share. You’ll get the usual boiler plate answer like “it’s all fine”, “looking forward to start working”, “it’s sunny today so I’m happy”, etc…
After a month or two people will be a lot more relaxed and comfortable sharing whatever is on their heart. You could end up hearing a minutes long ramble summarising someone’s week, or if they are tired whey would usually say so and explain why.
It really helped to get people familiar and comfortable with each other despite the meetings being there primarily for work. Having people getting comfortable being open and honest is a godsend for whoever is managing the team.
It’s one of the things that everyone would be positive about when we did one to one meetings with everyone in the org twice a year.
Are you forklift certified?
Yes, And you won’t belive how it happend…
I can’t believe how easy it is to get a forklift certification. All online, never have to touch an actual forklift.
I don’t know if that’s common knowledge, but I just found out because I went through the process myself to get certified.
I can’t believe how easy it is to get a forklift certification.
That varies by jurisdiction.
Where I am, it requires a theory test and an in-person practical test.
And you need to re-certify every 3 years.
I’m in Illinois. After the online stuff, they sent me a certificate which has a signature line for someone at whatever company hires me, to be signed after they train me on the specific truck they have.
