If I absolutely have to, yes. If I don’t need to, I avoid it and prefer to mind my own business. For example, I sometimes attend some happy hour events for people in my field of work. Obviously you have to have some small talk, but I usually only engage if someone strikes a conversation. If not, then I’m happy just eating and drinking while watching whatever is on the bar tv. If I’m attending a show, concert, or game, I don’t strike a conversation with strangers at all.

Yes I can. No I don’t do it often.

I have ADHD, and struggle to remember small details or infer the same things other people do from dialogue. This means that outside of structured discussions, I struggle to maintain a conversation that interests others most of the time. My friends are the ones who don’t make an issue of my shift between a lack of engagement or intense engagement and my completely forgetting things that other people things are extremely important like remembering names. I have had the same few friends for a couple decades because making new friends is fucking hard.

So when it comes to strangers, I tend to only have conversations a few times a year and almost always when traveling. Basically, if there is no chance of seeing them again and I have an easy out from the conversation I am comfortable starting one. Random people on public transport, in lines at restaurants, people at conferences, etc. Stick to whatever they bring up and try to keep up, consciously avoid dominating the conversation, etc. This all took a lot of practice over decades to become comfortable with and it takes a ton of work so I don’t do it often. The only reason I need to work at it is that most people think the things my brain doesn’t retain are important and that is generally what makes them think I’m not listening or participating. If I never see them again, then it isn’t important if I screw that up!

I am also an excellent presenter, and get tasked with that frequently. I don’t feel stressed in front of crowds because I practiced at it a lot and slowly became comfortable with it. For a lot of people social interaction takes practice and making ‘mistakes’ and learning that they need to adapt and not worry too much about whether the other person is enjoying the conversation, only if they give obvious signs they want to leave the conversation.

I love talking to strangers even though I’m pretty introverted. Having a little convo with someone I’ll never meet again is fun. It makes some people’s day to get an interaction and I like to make people happy.

If you having trouble knowing what to say in a conversation is what you’re getting at, I can relate to that. Once in a while I’ll have found a stranger whose standards I can meet, but they’re so few and far between that no tangible friendships have been made.

Yes. No.

Get a friend to walk you through it.

I’ll be frank, if you don’t have friends or a partner and you aren’t willing to leave your comfort zone to talk to people then to me it indicates a lack of willingness on your side. Why don’t you want those enough to overcome your faults and just keep at it?

yeah, no problem.

i’m a social butterfly when i’m drunk and somehow managed to transfer this skill into my sober life over the years.

i’m even pretty good at phonecalls now. those terrified me my whole life. now i often prefer them over emails/texting.

54m here who is neurodivergent.

Yes, I can have a conversation with a stranger, but that was not always the case. It took years of practice to get to the point where I could be in a group or one on one and actually contribute.

The issue is, it takes SO much out of me. Where the people I’m interacting with have nice processing centers in their brains doing the bulk of the work for them in carrying the conversation. The processing centers that deal with social interaction are inactive in my brain and I have to actually think about everything going on. Which is a lot of energy to spend on conversations that really have no actual merit, other than just being social.

Think of it this way, do you remember how much energy you had to expend thinking on the last difficult test you took at school? That’s how I feel after social interactions. Because I have to do virtually the same amount of thinking in that setting, that most people use on a Physics exam.

Even with my wife and kids, I have to take breaks from them. While the years have given me habits and known behaviors that I don’t have to think about with them and keep our relationships healthy. I still have to do a lot of active processing to interact with them.

It sucks, but it is the way I am and always will be.

Ive heard this kind of stuff happens in my city more than other big cities. Line at the grocery store or such. It is less than it was when I was a kid and young adult though.

I have conversations with strangers all day every day. I’m an uber driver. Best job I’ve ever had.

I think that’s something you can learn. It definitely takes some training. But speaking from own experience, I think I started out as an introvert and in my very fist job I had to talk to lots of random strangers each day. And I adjusted. Nowadays I can start conversations easily, do smalltalk… I mean I’m probably still the same person and sometimes I like to talk and sometimes I don’t like to open up at all. But I know what to say, how to keep a conversation going or end it if I like and it doesn’t take that much effort. And I think that makes me a bit more at ease. Knowing I have that skill available. But it certainly took me some time and effort to get there.

And I’m still not particularly good at mimicking an extroverted person. But I don’t care that much anymore. If I make mistakes, or I struggle with some conversational partner, that’s just what it is. It makes me uncomfortable. But at some point I’m going to have other problems to deal with and I’m going to forget about it.

I do now, tho I prefer to read in silence. What helped me, was to remind myself, that in the grand scheme of things this conversation and any opinion this stranger will have of me is irrelevant.

No. Between being really poor about remembering names and whether I’ve met someone before, and always being suspicious about their motives for approaching me, it never goes well.

This past summer I travelled down south and it was a strange experience - people were friendly and wanted to chat, and even be helpful, and not once was there an obvious scam. I’m too old to be discovering something like this but I’ve always been with family or friends or something, or visiting tourist spots, but this time I was wandering in “normal” places. After a week, I was finally open to small talk without suspicion, but what an experience!

I could have a conversation with a stranger, but I would prefer not to. I don’t find silence uncomfortable and I’m perfectly happy to wait quietly.

I don’t like it when people try to chat when I’m having my hair cut, or waiting for something. Small talk is a drag and I really don’t care about any of it.