Five Fast Tips for Starting Conversations - Continued

4. Smokers at most parties will stand in certain areas of any type of event or they will walk out in the hallway during an event to have a cigarette. If you smoke, you can easily start up a conversation with another person that is smoking in the hallway by stating something about how nice the area is, how the event seems to be going off without a hitch, or something about how you each know the host/hostess. Anything that is said about the atmosphere in general, or the people at the event in a general fashion, can be a start to a conversation that could continue when you see each other during the event again.

5. Have you seen someone sitting in a group of chairs alone, sitting on the couch, or standing by the drink bowl alone? You can easily strike up a conversation by using the old stand by, for example, ‘Hi Harry’, and then you realize it isn’t Harry, and you can break off into, ‘Oh, I am sorry, you look so much like this one good friend of mine that I haven’t seen in ages’ and then you can ask what their name is or introduce yourself. Without your acting too nervous about making this mistake of ‘mistaken identity’, you will find that generally people are more than willing to talk about their selves, their name, where they work, where they are from, how they came to be at this place and so on. It isn’t like you are out looking for a date while at this business, event, meeting, place or convention, so you can strike up a conversation and stop a conversation at any time without having to worry about really ever seeing this person again. 

The most important ‘thing’ that you can do when you are going to a new place where there are fresh new faces that you don’t know is to walk up and put yourself in the middle of things. Pretend, in your mind, that you are the new kid in school – and you are out to make at least five new friends or acquaintances during this time. If you find it is easy to talk to one or two people, you could be easily mingling all night long with out much effort at all. By the end of the night, you can put all your business cards, phone numbers or email addresses in one spot in your wallet or purse so you can keep in contact with these people – never know when you might run into them again!