Where do I even begin?

This blog post is a transcript of Episode 95 of my podcast/YouTube series. Because of that, it is not written to be grammatically/syntactically correct.

You can listen here and watch here.

Once upon a time, there were students who didn't know how to start a conversation.

Some students wanted to talk to other people, but didn't know what to say. This usually meant they didn't say anything. Other students tried things they had been taught, like saying, "How's it going?" Or, "Hey, what's up?" which didn't get them very far. And then there were students who tried to start interactions by being silly or weird or over the top, because they didn't know how else to get someone's attention.

I created this lesson for all of these students.

In this lesson, students learn how to start a conversation with someone they know, how to start a conversation with someone they don't know (because, yes, I teach my students to talk to strangers), and when and how to introduce ourselves to someone, if at all.

When we look at the checklist for this week's lesson, it covers: How do we start a conversation with someone that we know? And how do we start a conversation with someone that we don't know? Those are the two main concepts that are in the lesson. This is module three, which is all about conversations. And it is lesson Six. In every module, I put the lessons in order from easiest to hardest, so we add in complexity as we go through. The lessons inside of a module are cumulative, so they build on each other.

It seems, logistically speaking, like initiating a conversation would be at the beginning of the module, since it's, you know, starting. But to me, initiating a conversation is one of the most difficult things there is when it comes to conversations, and that's why I have it all the way at lesson six. We've already learned five other skills related to conversations, five other ideas, concepts, before we even get to starting a conversation, because it's difficult. It's challenging. It requires initiation. It requires some bravery. That's what we're going to talk about today for the lesson about initiating a conversation.

I use the word 'initiating', and we talk about what that word means. Some students know that it means starting something, and some students don't. I always want to make sure that all of my students understand what we're talking about and that we don't get lost in vocabulary or semantics or even words that they maybe have never heard before. And I want to introduce them to words that maybe they haven't heard before. It's a mixture of both coming together.

I tell the students that I feel like initiating a conversation is difficult, and I tell them that's why it's lesson number six. The reason I share that with them is because I want to build some normalcy around these things being hard. I want my students to feel comfortable with the concept that the stuff that we talk about is difficult. I want them to know that it's okay to think that and to feel that. I also like telling students that things are going to be difficult, because they're usually not as difficult as I make them out to be, and it helps my students feel a bit more successful when maybe it's not as difficult as they thought it would be.

When it comes to starting a conversation, there's really two different groups of people that we may choose to talk to. The first group is people who we know. This doesn't mean that we know them well, but it does mean we are familiar with them. In another part in the program, we talk about the word 'acquaintances'. Acquaintances are people who we know. The first thing I teach in this lesson is: How do we start a conversation with someone we know, with someone who's an acquaintance?

Most of the time, if we're talking about kids, the people who they know are going to be at school, just because school is a big environment. That's where other kids tend to be. It could be in the neighborhood. There are definitely other places it could be. It could be places like Starfish Social Club, summer camp, scouts, youth group, all kinds of places. But it typically will be school, just because that's where the kids are.

When we talk about people who we know, I introduce the word 'generic'. We talked about generic in module two.(Students don't have to start the program at the beginning of module one. They can join during any module, so there are students who might be in module three who weren't in module two, but most of the students continue through the program.) We talk about the word generic at the end of module two, and so I bring it up again in this lesson in module three. What does it mean for something to be generic? Generic really means it can apply to anybody. It's not special, it's not unique, it's not individual, it could apply to most people.

What that means in this topic about conversations is, if we're going to talk to someone who we know, or who we at least know something about, we don't want to have a generic conversation starter. We don't want to be the, "Hey, what's up?" "Hey, how's it going?" conversation starter. That's generic. That's something that you can say to anybody.

If we know this person, we want to try to say something about what we know about them. Not only is it going to make them want to engage with us more than if we just say something generic, but now we've come up with a topic to have during this conversation. Module two is all about paying attention and noticing things. And so in module two, we spend a lot of time listening to each other, paying attention to each other. The second half of module two is all about: What do you know about the people that you're in a group with here at Starfish? What have you learned about other people? What do you know about them? So we use that to generate ideas about what we could say to somebody to start a conversation.

A great strategy (this is a pretty universal strategy, no matter how old you are), is to talk about the weekend. Depending on the day of the week that it is when you are initiating a conversation with someone, you can choose to talk about the weekend that has passed, or the weekend that's coming up. Typically, if it's Sunday through Tuesday, we would typically talk about the weekend that has passed. If it's Wednesday on, we would talk about the weekend coming up. The reason this is a great way to start a conversation is that, even if somebody doesn't have anything they're doing, you can still use it as a conversation starter. I add a second component to it. We put together talking about the weekend and talking about what we know about this person. We put them together. It's like a little marriage, a little topic marriage.

I have the students pick anybody in the group, including me, and they think about something they know about that person. But we don't get to ask each other questions at this point. My goal is for students to be able to remember what they've heard other students in the group talk about in the time that we've been together, to pay attention to things people are wearing (that's a great indicator of things that people are interested in), even during game time in the group, what does somebody like to play? What do they like to do? There are lots of ways to notice what somebody likes without asking them.

This is especially true for kids, because kids tend to wear things that represent what they like to do. A lot of T-shirts that kids and teenagers wear will give you a great idea of what they're interested in. They may be T-shirts from places they've been, they may be T-shirts from their favorite movie, or video game. There's all kinds of clues that you can get by looking at people's clothing. I noticed a couple weeks ago that a student was wearing shoes that were from a show. I had never seen that before. Sometimes shoes can give you great insight into what somebody's interested in. Backpacks. If students are in a place where they have backpacks, especially when they're younger, they tend to have character backpacks.

And just listening to them. In Starfish Social Club, our lessons are engaging, interactive conversations. In just one lesson, you could probably learn something about everybody in the group because everybody's talking, everybody's sharing, everybody's engaging. That's what we focus on in module two, is noticing things about people. This is why the modules go in the order they go in, because in order to start a conversation with someone you know, you need to remember things about them, which is what we talked about previously.

Back to our marriage of weekends and interests, a great way to try starting a conversation with someone you know is to think about something you know about them (again, you can do the past weekend or the coming weekend) and ask them if they have plans to do that thing, or if they did that thing over the weekend. I'm going to use video games because I don't know many students who don't like to play video games. If we talk about the past weekend, you could ask, "Did you play games over the weekend?" If we're talking about the weekend coming up, "Do you plan to play games this weekend?" Especially if you know what their favorite game is. That makes it even more specific. "Did you play Mario Kart over the weekend?" Or, "Are you planning to play Mario Kart this weekend?"

If you know somebody who likes to read, if you know somebody who likes to go fishing, if you know somebody who likes to ride roller coasters. "Did you did you play with your cats over the weekend? Did you take any pictures of your cats over the weekend?" It can be anything that you have learned about this other person.

This approach to starting a conversation, number one: makes it personal. We all really like it when people think about us, and when people remember things about us and know things about us. We all, as human beings, really like that. So number one, you're making it personal. Number two, you're introducing the weekend to give it some context. Instead of saying something like, "Are you playing video games?" Or, "Have you played any video games lately?" you give it some context by talking about the weekend.

You could actually use this with the same person every week. If students come to Starfish once a week, they could use this strategy every day that they come because the answer might be different. Some days it might be yes, some days it might be no, but it is likely to open a conversation, which is what we're trying to do. We're trying to open a conversation. This strategy is really basic. It's just thinking about what somebody's interested in and giving it a context of the weekend. You can use this with anybody that you know anything about.

There's somebody in my in my life, we have a business relationship, and we touch base twice a year. Every time, he asks me personal questions about my life based on things we've talked about in the past. I am very aware that he probably has them written down on an index card or under my contact in his phone, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that I can tell that he is putting effort into making a connection with me and making me feel like he listens to me, he pays attention to what I talk about, and that the things I talk about are important to him. This is a great strategy for building connections, reinforcing connections, beginning to make connections with people. I think this is a great way to start a conversation with somebody that you know. Even if you only know one thing about them, take that thing and run with it.

After we talk about this, we all practice. Everybody gets to choose the person they want to talk to. I have them say out loud something they know about this person. If somebody says, "I can't think of anything," I will pause and choose someone else and come back to them, and I will say, "You can choose something you heard someone else say." But I really want to reinforce the importance of paying attention to other people. Paying attention to the things people talk about, the things that they're wearing, paying attention to other people. It is difficult to have meaningful conversations with people if we are not paying attention to who they are as a person. And so I do really reinforce: Think about what you have heard this student talk about before. What do they like to do during game time? What are they wearing? What did you hear someone else say about them a couple minutes ago?

Every once in a while, say they choose me, for example, I'll say, "What do you know about me?" And they'll ask something like, "What's your favorite place to eat?" "Nope, you don't get to ask me a question. This isn't question time. There's another lesson about asking people questions. Today is not about asking people questions." It reinforces the importance of paying attention to people.

Next, we talk about how to start a conversation with someone you don't know. If you've been in my world for a while, you have heard me say that I am not a fan of the concept of 'stranger danger'. I'll say it again. We talk more extensively about this in module four, where we talk about relationships, but I also touch on it in this lesson.

I make it a little bit exaggerated and silly. I'll say, "Remember the first day you came to Starfish Social Club. Everybody was a stranger to you. I meet all the students ahead of time, so I would be the only person that wouldn't be a stranger to you, but all the other students would be strangers. You would not have met them before." Every once in a while, I have students that are from the same school in our in-person San Antonio groups, but not that often. San Antonio is a very large city, and I talk about how silly it would be if we weren't allowed to talk to strangers, like a lot of us are taught, and we came to Starfish Social Club and we weren't allowed to talk to each other, because we were all strangers. I talk about how silly that would be. I talk about going to your first day of kindergarten, but you're not allowed to talk to anybody because they're all strangers. I talk about being an adult and going to your first day of college, or your first day at a new job, and everybody's a stranger, so you're not allowed to talk to them. And then I joke that, if your parents didn't ever talk to strangers, you wouldn't be here, because they never would have met if they weren't allowed to talk to strangers.

(In module four, we talk about how, anytime we talk to someone we don't know, we want to be safe and we want to be smart. We talk about what that means. So I'm not saying I just throw caution to the wind and say, "Go talk to anybody you want to." We talk specifically about how to be safe and how to be smart when we talk to people we don't know.)

Talking to strangers was much more common before smartphones and social media were such a thing. Those of you guys, most people who listen and watch this are around my age. I can see the data. We knew a time where you would talk to the person in line next to you at the grocery store, or at the bank or have a little chat with your waiter or waitress at a restaurant. Neighbors, hanging out in the yard having a conversation with your neighbors. This doesn't happen as much anymore, because our phones and all the things that we do on them have really drawn us away from having conversations with other people. If you think about, even if you are in line at the grocery store, are you on your phone? I talked in one of the previous episodes about student and parent being in the car together. How often is your kiddo on technology when you're driving somewhere? Ten years ago, that wasn't even an option.

Technology has definitely made in-person interactions more challenging, and students who are being brought up with technology at their easy disposal aren't given as many opportunities to learn how to have conversations, especially conversations with strangers. It's almost uncomfortable now for people to talk to strangers, and it's just typically not expected.

I talk to everybody. One of the things I try to do is I try to spread happiness. I was at an event this morning, and I got in the elevator at the same time with somebody who wasn't at the event, he was coming from somewhere else, and I said, "Hey, elevator buddy, how's your day?" I just try to spread happiness. And so much of that is talking to people I don't know. Just little short exchanges. It doesn't even have to be a conversation. Little short exchanges. I'm going to start the effort to make that normal again, because it used to be normal. Alright, thanks for coming to my TED talk about talking to strangers.

This is how we start a conversation with someone we don't know: There are two things we can look for when it comes to someone that we don't know, but we are considering starting a conversation with them. Again, this is where our noticing skills come into play. One thing we can look for, is we can notice if we have something in common with this person. The whole goal of social conversations is about making connections, which comes from having things in common. That's what it's all about.

We can notice things we have in common with someone by looking. Are they wearing the same kind of shoes that you have? Does their parent drive the same kind of vehicle as yours? What can you notice you have in common with this person just by looking?

I will often use wearing glasses as an example when we talk about this. I will point out in the group (it's usually about 50/50), "Look, you four are wearing glasses today, and you five aren't wearing glasses today." I typically use that because it's an easy example, and what I've noticed is that students will start to recognize that at random times of the year, completely unrelated to this lesson, on their own. "Oh, look, almost everybody's wearing glasses today!" It shows me how much they're internalizing the stuff that we're talking about.

So that's number one: What do you have in common with this person? What we always have in common with someone that we might want to start a conversation with, is that we're in the same situation. We're in the same place, we're doing the same thing. Even my example of the guy on the elevator: I have no idea why he was in that building, I don't even know where he came from, but we're in the same situation. We're both getting into an elevator with a stranger. If you're in line at the grocery store, you're both in line at the grocery store. That's the easy thing about starting a conversation with someone you don't know, is you can use the context as a way to start the conversation.

What we typically want to avoid is using the context to complain about it. We typically don't want to start a conversation by being negative. You might get a response, but it's probably not going to be a very great conversation if we start it by complaining. So if you're at the DMV, for example, you can make a joke, but I wouldn't try to start a conversation with the person waiting next to you about how long you've been waiting. The last time I was at the DMV when I moved back to Texas and had to get all my documents straight again, I don't remember what I said but I was making a joke with a person sitting next to me about the different categories. Your number corresponds to why you're there. I think they're lettered, like A27, B49, and I was just making a joke to him, like, "What do I need to do to be here for A?" Just my way of connecting with a stranger, but being silly about it, being playful about it.

The second thing we can notice about somebody we don't know is something about them that we're interested in. Maybe you notice that they have a place on their shirt that you have wanted to go. Sometimes students will wear things, and I don't know what that is. I'm not their age, I'm not cool like they are, so sometimes I'll ask students about what's on their shirt. I'll ask students if they're wearing shoes that I've never seen before. That's another great way to start a conversation with someone you don't know is: What are you interested in about them? What do you notice, even if you don't have it in common, but it's interesting? Lots of people comment on my hair. That's probably the most common thing, if a stranger is going to say something to me, it's usually about my hair. It can be somebody's jewelry, what somebody's wearing, what somebody's doing, what somebody's reading. There are all kinds of things that you can notice about someone that you can make a comment about.

That's really what a compliment is. If we compliment a stranger, we're noticing something about them that we're interested in. "Those are really cute shoes," or "I really like that hat." Sometimes you might hear people follow up with, "Where'd you get it?" That's starting a conversation with someone you don't know.

The strategies are not difficult. What's difficult is not being sure of the outcome. One of the things that we talk about is: If you try to start a conversation with someone that you don't know, there's most likely three potential outcomes. So I ask the students, "What do you think the outcomes are if we start a conversation with someone that you don't know?"

One potential outcome is, they don't respond. Some people don't want to talk to people they don't know, and that's okay. Another outcome is, they respond, but they don't engage. They may just say, "Thanks," and then keep walking. And then the third is, they engage. and now you guys are having a conversation. We don't know which one it's going to be. Any of them may happen, but that shouldn't stop us from trying.
We talk about some of the clues that it's not a good time to try to start a conversation with somebody. I'll ask, "What are some clues that we might notice that someone probably isn't interested in talking?" Things like: if they're on their phone. If they have earbuds in or headphones on. If they're talking to someone else. If they're reading something. If they look like they're in a hurry. If they look like they're not having the best day. If they look like they're listening to something that's going on, maybe a conversation around them. So just noticing situations where someone is most likely less interested in having a conversation, and then we leave those people alone. We move on. We find somebody else.

The next thing that we talk about in this lesson is when, how, and even if, we introduce ourselves. I share with the students a lot of stories about times that I've talked to people that I don't know, and I share with them that, most of those times, I don't ever introduce myself to that person, and they don't introduce themselves to me. That's typically what's expected when we're talking to somebody that we don't know. The point is not to meet someone, he point is not to make a new friend (because, again, that's not how friendships work. We'll get to that later), but it's just to have a social interaction.

I feel like, for students who struggle with initiating conversations, I would prefer that they practice with a stranger than initiating conversations with people they know. There's no pressure when you try to start a conversation with a stranger. As we talked about, it's going to go one of three ways, and who cares? If they completely ignore you, who cares? If they look at you like you're weird and say, "You're weird," who cares? I actually feel like starting conversations with people we don't know is a great way to practice starting conversations.

Back to the topic of introducing ourselves: Most of the time, when we're talking to somebody that we don't know, we are not going to introduce ourselves. It's not expected, it's not required, there's no reason to. What I teach the students is, it would be expected and appropriate and common to introduce yourself if you think you're going to see this person again. The first day somebody moves into the house next door to you, they're a stranger. But if you start a conversation with them, you're going to see them again. They now live next door to you. A student in your classroom, all the students at Starfish, if you think you're going to see them again, that's a great opportunity to introduce yourself. If you don't expect to see them again, there's no reason to introduce yourself. You can if you want to. I don't. I don't see the reason to tell people my name.

We talk about how, usually introductions happen at the end of a conversation, usually when we're getting ready to end the conversation. And it could sound something like, "Hey, I'm Steph, it was really nice to meet you." Or "I'm Steph, I'll see you again tomorrow." It's usually at the end of the conversation, and it's because we expect to see this person again. They will usually respond by telling us their name. If it's a situation where we want to exchange contact information, we can do that as well at the end of the conversation, after we've had a chance to connect and we know that we want to talk to this person again.

I end this lesson by having the students pretend. This one's a little bit more challenging, because we have to pretend that something we know, we don't know. I have them pretend that they don't know anybody else in the room. I have them look at each other and identify something about one person in the group. If you had never met this person before, what about them could you use to start a conversation?

We do not talk about people's bodies, so nothing about bodies. But we can talk about clothing, we can talk about jewelry, we can talk about accessories like hats or socks or belts, we can talk about shoes. Did they bring something today? Do they have a book or a fidget or their phone case? Just by looking at somebody, you can get a lot of information, and then you pick one of those things that you either have in common with them or that you're interested in, and you mention it. You can just say something like, "Hey, I noticed we're both wearing blue shoes today. "Just say something simple like that. Again, they're going to respond in one of three ways, but it doesn't even matter. What matters is that you did it. You just started a conversation with someone you don't know.

And as we started talking about a conversation with someone you do know, when we use what we know about them and we add in the weekend, it almost always opens up a conversation. And hopefully that person has the communication skills to keep that conversation going, which obviously is another thing we practice in this module, is how you keep a conversation going. So that's how it all comes together in this conversation stew that we have going on. There are so many elements to it. Conversations are difficult. They are difficult, and that's why I break down the components like this.

Let's see what the magic number generator has for us next time. Four. That is module one. Lesson three in module one is creating a reputation for being smart: the things that we want to avoid if we want a reputation for being smart. Lesson four is creating a reputation for being smart under the concept of moderation. When it comes to having a reputation for being smart (when it comes to having a reputation for anything), the biggest challenge with our students is that they are doing things that they think give them that reputation, and it actually doesn't. That's what half of Module one is about is, how do we create the reputation that we want? What do we stop doing? What do we start doing? That'll be what we talk about next time is, reputation for being smart. I'll see you then.