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So often times I am at a social event and meet some one*. You start with the usual questions: Hi my/your name is? What do you do? Which are all good to get started. But inevitably this leads to boring conversation about work and or someone asking me to fix their computer.

I am wanting to find some better questions to take the convocations in a more interesting direction. However I have only been able to figure out two good ones so far.

So that I can come up with some more:

What makes a good question?

What are some examples?

What I have so far:

Sport ball questions in my opinion are not very good, they tend to always be: Yay my team won or Boo my team lost. Infinitely reusable but won't lead in to something more interesting (now or if you meet the person later at another social event).

One which has worked well for me: "If you won $100k (USD), what would you do?"

This seems good to me as it is very opened ended. 100k not enough to live of forever, but still more than what you normally spend even when buying something big. So the person has to think about it. It can help you learn something interesting about the person (e.g., 'I would start a goat cheese farm') And can lead on to further engaging question/discussions.

That is some of what I think makes a good question. What else make a good question? What am I missing?

*To be clear I am looking for actual small talk questions Not pick up lines.

DarcyThomas
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I find the best way to get people talking is to talk to them about themselves. It helps if you find genuine interest in something that they may have already mentioned such as parts of their profession you want to know more about.

You can also share some personal stories or experiences relating to this new person, for example if they shared that they just moved from New York, you can mention that you have been there and you liked this or that place.

user68493
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