Making small talk with people you don’t know is basically an extreme
sport. It’s the social equivalent of slalom skiing, except you’re not
wearing a helmet or a bodysuit. (Unless you’re trying to break the ice
at a dirt-biking leotard enthusiast convention.) The course ahead of
you requires powerful manoeuvres executed with grace and precision.
That’s why you need a coach (i.e. me) to take you through the moves....................
MEETING THE PARENTS // How do you get off on the right foot
with people whose nude sex produced the person with whom you’re
having nude sex? That’s the problem with meeting your partner’s
parents: everything is about sex, but nobody’s allowed to talk about
it. (And rightly so, because come on, ew, no thank you.) The master
move here is the humble pre-exam cheat sheet, where you force
your partner to recount the last two or three conversations they’ve
had with their folks. Then, you bring up the topics as though you
thought of them yourself. “Nice to meet you, Linda! Boy, I sure do
love brightly coloured resin jewellery and the films of moustachioed
dreamboat Tom Selleck.”
PARTY OF STRANGERS // Did you know you can reanimate a corpse
that’s been clinically dead for up to four hours by taking it to a house
party where it only knows one person? The adrenaline wakes them
right up! That’s the risk here – combine adrenaline with alcohol,and you’ll blurt out, “My grandparents were first cousins!” to a room
full of strangers. A better alternative: spreading rumours about
famous folks. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or false, as long as everyone
knows the celeb in question. “Did you ever hear about the time
*flips through mental Rolodex* Pamela Anderson *flip flip* adopted
a donkey and *flip* named it Jean-Paul Sartre?” You’re in.
THE WORK DO// Work functions have one of the lowest difficulty
settings for icebreakers, because everyone has a very obvious thing
in common. But it’s like walking a tightrope – you want to talk about
something other than work, but it can’t be something that makes
things weird the next day. I believe the difficulty of striking this
delicate balance is one of the main reasons people have children.
They’re like a human shield – bring up a cute photo of Jendyll in
a beanie with animal ears and everyone will eat right out of your
hand. If you don’t have kids, consider talking about your nieces and
nephews, or googling ‘human baby’ and pretending the 18th result
is a product of your own loins.
AT YOUR LOCAL// The usual way to get to know people at the
pub is to simply get drunk and see what happens, but if that’s not
an option, you can always press the emergency red button: funny
names. Yes, this is the time to reveal you have a friend named
Edward Craps; or a former boss named Dick Wristy; or an ancestor
called Hugh Buttocksford. These poor souls shouldn’t labour under
the burden of an undignified name for nothing – you essentially have
a moral obligation to make fun of them. Drunk people can’t resist
cheap laughs, either, so it’s the perfect crime.
SOMEONE’S GETTING MARRIED // The key to mastering Wedding
Chat is emotional intuition. Hardly anyone’s going to be in a relaxed
state of mind, so if you want to have a successful conversation with
someone who’s not completely plastered, it’s your job to find out
which neuroses this wedding has dredged up for them. Are they
thinking about their own wedding? Their partner? Their lack of
partner? How much they love and/or hate the happy couple? Do a
little digging – most people will surrender the info pretty quickly. This
will give you at least 20 minutes’ worth of material to work with.an unreliable
guide to icebreakers
NEED TO KICK OFF A CONVERSATION
OR TWO? ELEANOR ROBERTSON CAN
HELP YOU OUT (MAYBE).
not-quite-right advice