We’ve all been there.
Be it at a work event, with friends of friends or even with extended family members. Nobody enjoys those awkward few minutes when you are forced to make conversation with someone you don’t really know.
Most of the time people end up talking about the weather or where you both come from, struggling to hold a decent conversation.
But now, the author of the book When Strangers Meet: How People You Don’t Know Can Transform You, Kio Stark, has given some advice on how to tackle these situations and has a very handy trick.
She said that you should use a technique called triangulation.
This basically means that you imagine that there’s a triangle between you and the person you’re speaking with. You are one point of the triangle, the other person is another point and then some third thing which is in close proximity to you, like a work of art or someone else, is the third point.
According to Science of Us, she recently explained this technique while at TED talks saying:
“There’s you, there’s a stranger, there’s some third thing that you both might see and comment on, like a piece of public art or somebody preaching in the street or somebody wearing funny clothes. Give it a try. Make a comment about that third thing, and see if starts a conversation.”
She is also suggesting we should all try it out on complete strangers to see if it works but we’ll just keep this trick in the bag for a more natural opportunity instead of freaking out somebody on the street.
