• FORD. Family, occupation, recreation, dreams. If you know the FORD of a person after meeting them for the first time chances are they will want to talk to you again. They just spent 20 minutes telling you about the 4 most important things for them and you actively listened. Of course they are going to want to be around you, you not only gave them attention they felt comfortable telling you information. Which gets retroconned. They didn’t trust you and then tell you, they told you therefore they must have trusted you.

    Don’t bother with weather or whatever the local sports ball team did last night against the opposing sports ball team.

    • @dingus@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      One big problem I have with getting to know new people is these questions are often reciprocated to one another. And when people ask me the same questions, they get to know exactly how pathetic and empty my life is. I try to avoid the questions but it just makes me uncomfortable because there often is no easy out.

      I don’t have hobbies or passions to talk about. When I get home from work, I literally do nothing but veg out on the couch all evening, mindlessly scrolling on things like YouTube or Lemmy. I don’t have a significant other or children or pets or friends to talk about. And I don’t like people knowing this stuff about me until we’ve gotten close to one another. My life is so pathetic and embarrassing that it makes this stuff really tricky.