What to Say in the First Ten Seconds

Three openers that work almost anywhere

They are all about the situation, not about you and not about them. That is why they work.

Ask about the thing in front of you. "Do you know if she wants this in pen or typed?"

Say the thing that just happened. "That was the longest twenty minutes of my life."

Ask for something small. "Can I borrow a pen?" "Is anyone sitting here?"

None of those are clever, and clever is not the target. The target is easy to answer. A question someone can answer without thinking is a door. A question they have to work at is a test.

The ten seconds after are the actual skill

Here is the mistake almost everyone makes. They ask a good question, get an answer, and then immediately ask another question. Two more of those and it has turned into an interview, and the other person starts looking for a way out.

The fix is one move. Add something of your own first, then ask.

"Do you know if she wants this in pen or typed?"

"Typed, I think."

"Good, my handwriting is genuinely unreadable. Did you start it yet?"

Six words of your own in the middle. That is the difference between a conversation and a survey.

Give them something to grab

When it is your turn to answer, do not hand back one word.

"What did you do this weekend?"

"Nothing" ends it. "Nothing, I got stuck at my sister's swim meet for five hours" hands over three separate things they can pick up: the sister, the swimming, the five hours.

You are not being more interesting. You are leaving more handles on it.

How to end it without it landing badly

This is the part nobody teaches and it matters more than the opener.

Do not let a conversation dribble out while you both look at the floor. End it on purpose, and name the next time.

"I have to get to class. See you Thursday."

Those five words at the end do most of the work of the whole exchange. They say the thing was fine, and they say there is a next one.

Knowing the lines is the easy half

The formal treatment for people who get badly anxious in social situations is not a lecture. In the UK's national clinical guideline, the recommended course for young people includes exposure to the situations being avoided, training in social skills, and, in its own words, opportunities to rehearse skills in social situations.

The rehearsal is in the guideline because reading is not the part that changes anything. That is also true of this page. You can know every line here and be no further forward until you have said one of them out loud to a real person on a Tuesday.

If nothing happens the first few times

That is the normal shape of it rather than a result.

The American Academy of Pediatrics describes shy children as generally doing well socially once they are past an initial period of adjustment. That page is about younger kids and was last updated in 2009, so it is not a measurement of you. The useful bit is the framing: an adjustment period is a stretch of time, not a personality.

Say the first line badly a few times. It gets much cheaper very quickly.