The amount of writing online about “how to start a conversation with a stranger” is genuinely strange, given how simple the answer is. You say hello. They say hello back. Then one of you says a thing and the other responds to that thing.
Where it actually goes wrong is the second sentence, not the first.
The opener doesn’t carry the conversation. “Hi, how’s it going” opens 80% of calls on XES and 80% of those calls are fine. The reason they’re fine isn’t the opener. It’s that the person on the other end answered, you answered theirs, and someone — whichever of you got there first — asked a question that wasn’t purely a greeting.
The trick is making sure the next thing one of you says is a real question. “How’s your week been” works. “What are you up to today” works. Anything that mentions one of the interest tags on the other person’s screen really works, because you didn’t even have to think of it. The matchmaker handed you the opener.
Where calls die is when both people just keep going “not much, you?” and waiting for the other one to ask something substantive. Both sides are sitting on the same instinct — let them lead — and the call quietly stalls until one of you skips.
If you’re the kind of person who overthinks the opener, here’s the cheat: be the one who asks the second question. You don’t have to be original. “Where are you calling from” works on 100% of calls because it’s the lowest-stakes thing to answer and it almost always sets up a follow-up. Once you’re three exchanges in, the conversation has already started, and you’ve forgotten what your opener was.
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