Oh man, I was such a social outcast for much of my life. For the longest time I never knew how to talk to others. Over time, however, I've learned better ways of communicating, and socializing isn't so hard anymore.

My secret weapon for conversations is to ask people questions about themselves, and act interested asking more questions even when I'm not. "Where do you work? - What was that job like? - It must have been real hard working in conditions like that." Something like that. It's kinda like being an investigator. I have to pretend like I'm gonna solve some big interesting mystery at the end of the conversation, and I usually find myself getting genuinely interested because of this.

And people really like to talk about two things: themselves, and the past. If asking about them currently doesn't work, ask about some of their favorite memories. Nostalgia works wonders.

When these fail, I try not to blame myself. If I'm doing all this work in the conversation and it's going nowhere, then they're obviously not meeting me halfway. Sometimes there's just awkward silences, that's ok. Conversations never have to be perfect, and an awkward or "failed" conversation is no one person's fault. Just like any other relationship, conversations take two people.