Conversation Starters

Conversation starters come in handy in nearly every social situation. When I meet someone new, I'm always curious to know how they spend their time, so that is usually the first thing I ask.

I also like to be up on the news before a dinner party or other social engagement. The Sunday paper offers a wide variety of things to talk about. For example, I'm interested in relationships, so I read the Modern Love column in the Sunday Styles section of the New York Times. It always gives me a conversation topic.

A friend once confided how she had little to talk about at dinner with her husband when they traveled. Some of these conversation starters would help. Find a few favorites that you can use when a conversation slows.

Open-ended questions tend to stimulate conversation better than questions that require only a one-word answer. Think about what your follow-up questions to these conversation starters might be.

1. How do you define happiness? How has that definition changed over the years?
2. If you were a dog, whom would you want as your owner?
3. What is the quirkiest thing about you?
4. What is number one on your bucket list?
5. What 3 pieces of advice would you leave in your will for your kids or others close to you?
6. What do you most fear regretting on your deathbed.
7. Where, other than where you live now, would you most want to live and why?
8. If you had one hour to spend with anyone living or dead, whom would it be and what would you talk about?
9. Would you rather be brilliant and unhappy or below average intelligence and happy? 
10. How do you go about making new friends?
11. What qualities do you value in a friend, in order of importance?
12. How do you spend your discretionary time?
13. Which is more important, having a great memory of an experience or loving the experience itself, if you could choose only one.
14. What is your best childhood memory?
15. What is your worst childhood memory?
16. What makes you feel most exhilirated?
17. What makes you uncomfortable that most other people seem to manage with ease?
18. How would you live differently if you knew no one would judge you?
19. What are your best and worst high school memories?
20. Tell about a time you were teased or bullied at school and how it felt OR about a time you bullied and how that has felt.
21. Think back to a crossroads in your life. How might things have worked out if you had taken the other path?
22. What do you like most about yourself?
23. What do you think others like most about you?
24. What's your favorite part of the day and why?
25. Least favorite time of day and why?
26. What months do you like and dislike and why?
27. What are your thoughts about cosmetic surgery?
28. What is your pet peeve about social media?
29. Close your eyes and think of a scene you've experienced that gives you the greatest feeling of peace; what makes it so?
30. What invention can you not imagine living without?
31. What is something you use that you wish had never been invented and why?
32. If you had to choose only 3 foods to eat for the rest of your life, what would they be?
33. If you had to choose one book and one movie to take to a desert island (that had a DVD player), what would they be?
34. If your child or someone close to you committed a terrible crime, would you turn him/her in? What would your thought process be?
35. What is your best time-saving or efficiency tip?
36. What is your first memory?
37. Whom from your past do you wish you could confront and why?
38. What do you wish you could go back and tell someone—an apology? Forgiveness? If that person is living, what is stopping you?
39. Tell what you loved about your favorite teacher.
40. What is the most relaxing thing you do? How often do you do it?
41. Pretend you are single and could go on a date with one celebrity, who would it be and why?
42. What is something you've done that you feel terribly guilty about?
43. Tell about something that makes you really sad, even though it's not that sad in the grand scheme of things.
44. If you could be anyone for a day, whom would you be and why?
45. What is something no one knows about you?
46. What is your favorite recipe?
47. What books are on your night table or in your e-reader?

Aslo see:

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