On our old WoW guild application form we included:
“Please rank all of the Star Trek captains you know from best to worst”
and then gave them a nice big empty text box to go to town in. Some answered seriously, and exhaustively. Some only knew Kirk, or didn’t know any at all. Some chose to go off on a rant about Star Wars being better, or include a joke or tell an anecdote about their relationship to scifi.
Whatever the answer we always learned something about the person and that was a good jumping off point if they got accepted. We did get the occasional humourless “wtf this is stupid” type response but, shockingly, this was rarely the only reason we had for denying such applications.
Have you ever danced with the Devil by the pale moonlight?
I haven’t, but I’ve always wanted to. Do you recommend any favorite spots?
Crossroads at midnight when the moon is full.
My usual go-to is to ask what their latest/current obsession is. It works really well for a few reasons:
- it’s nice and simple to ask - it doesn’t require a monologue/wall of text to set up, and it doesn’t require you to know anything about them to ask it;
- it’s both as personal and as low-stakes as they want it to be. They can give very intimate, in-depth answers if they feel like it, or they can just mention something like the latest film they enjoyed. There’s no risk of making them uncomfortable by asking it;
- it lets you filter out boring people who don’t really take interest in anything;
- assuming they do have interests, it often gives you plenty of opportunities to dive into deeper conversation;
- it’s often engaging for them because they get to talk about something they’re passionate about;
- it’s often interesting for you because people talking about things they’re passionate about is awesome (and often attractive).
- it’s pretty much always relevant and fresh because their latest obsession will change over time. This makes it particularly great for things like dating sites/apps because people’s bios will often be out of date and/or they’ll have talked about the things mentioned in their bio so much that they’re kind of sick of them.
I’ve actually had multiple people on dating sites tell me how great a question they think it is, and that they’re going to use it themselves in the future. So obviously it’s not just me who thinks it’s a great question!
“SO HOW ABOUT THAT ISRAELI - PALLESTINIAN CONFLICT?”
Be careful with your expression so that you offend supporters of both sides equally
What’s your favourite dinosaur?
What’s your favorite dinosaur?
Thanks to Jurassic Park it was the Velociraptor. But then I learned that their depiction was totally wrong. But then again my children taught me that they are even cool as murder chickens. So everything is well.
But still, I think the Emu is cooler.
Hell yeah murder chicken packs have to be scary!
What distro are you running as your daily driver?
Arch btw
What are you doing in my bathroom?
Can I suck your toes?
If the answer is yes it’s immediate love at first sight.
Based
Weirdly enough I dreamt someone did this right in front of me last night. My subconscious is odd.
Something that’ll lead to fairly flippant, casual, low-stakes chit chat about completely unimportant bullshit. People like getting a chance to get a sort of baseline reading of you, so talk about flippant, dumb, unimportant things for a little bit. Preferably ones that they are 100% certain to have recently experienced themselves, so it can go back and forth smoothly.
Given the diversity of humanity, this is a fairly short list. Weather, food, free time hobbies, etc. If they’re like a student, or work in a particular industry, that opens up a lot of options. But for a stranger? Just got a few to pick from. So, just pick one.
They call it “small talk” for a reason though. The real purpose of the talk has absolutely nothing to do with the actual subject of the discussion.
My go to is “how was your weekend?” Hopefully they’ll drop enough information that you can turn it into a conversation.
It usually ends in awkward silence. 🤐
I kind of hate when people ask my things like that because I often had a fun weekend but now can’t remember what all I did so I have to stop and remember for a while before answering, so I usually just say it was nice and hope they don’t ask for more details.
Eh. Yeah. I don’t usually have a lot in common with people, so I try to find some common ground that can start a conversation. I’m not very good at noticing what people like/do, so this gets a conversation moving.
I also forget my weekends. Which turns into a topic of conversation too. 😬
I hate when people ask me this because either it makes me think about how I didn’t get to what I wanted on the weekend, or how I was depressed over the weekend… On a good day the problem is that I mostly like to keep my hobbies and personal life to myself. I guess I’m probably hard to get to know 😅.
I know what you mean.
I started doing it because I noticed that I felt lonely at work, so I put an effort into small talk and making myself a bit more available. Part of that involved being more open about my hobbies and free time. It was worth it for me.
I had an acquaintance that started following hockey solely so she would have a conversation starter. I don’t have that kind of commitment, so I just do the weekend thing.
You: "How was your weekend?“ Them: glares at you in silence
“Who are you and how did you get into my house?”
So what do you like to do for fun? Or, What are some of your hobbies?
I find these much better than “so what do you do for work?”, which is what I’m asked constantly. “Yes, person who I don’t know, let me discuss work during my free time with you.”
I find that this backfires sometimes because many people don’t seem to have any hobbies.
In the context of an interviewer, I sometimes ask “can you teach me something cool about one of your interests in 5 min?” It’s not the same context obviously but you learn a lot about a person quickly that way. Bonus point is, I learn cool stuff about new things I’m probably not familiar with haha
If you ask me about my hobbies you’d better have some free time and a comfortable seat.
🍿🛋️ Ok, let’s hear them.
Well to start I play the guitar, bass, two kinds of banjo, drums, synthesizer and sing. I’m not picky about genres. I record using a DAW called Reason. I made my electric guitar about 5 years ago out of lumber sourced from the cabinet of a dead transistor organ I could never quite get to work properly that my wife finally told me had to quit taking up space. I have a Lofi synthesizer and a theremin that I built also. I’m also slowly building a collection of homemade effects pedals. I enjoy RC. I have a small helicopter and rock crawler truck, but no airplanes that are air worthy at the moment. I build Gundam models, and have also dabbled in kitbashing unrelated models like cars and airplanes together. This hobby I share with my 12 year old son. I have a couple of 1980s Honda 3 wheelers that I keep alive and occasionally ride. I bake often and I will never be skinny again because I’m good at it. Oh, brewing. I do like to make mead and occasional fruit wines. I’m especially fond of making floral meads with hibiscus or chamomile for example. I’ve been known to paint when the urge takes me. I have a 3D printer. I have even made a few useful things with. I designed a well working samba whistle that I keep forgetting to upload to thingiverse, and a few other things I have managed to wrestle out of blender. I know I’m forgetting something. My wife calls me a hobby spider.
I have friends that claim they “don’t have hobbies” but the truth is that they spend all their time with their kids and working.
So if they say, “well I don’t do much in the way of hobbies because I’m too busy working and taking care of my kids.” You can then follow up with “well what do you do for work?” Or “what’s the last vacation or outing you did with your kids?” Or “what are your kids interested in? How old are they? Tell me about their personalities.”
The fact that they “don’t have hobbies” isn’t necessarily it backfiring, you then just need to pivot based on their answers. This is just a way to break the ice with someone.
Everyone spends their days doing things, you are really just asking them “how do you spend your time?” Everyone has an answer to that…unless they are in a coma.
This is one of the questions that gives me the most social anxiety when meeting new people. It stresses me out because I don’t have any conventional hobbies. I don’t think dicking around on Discord, Lemmy, and YouTube really counts as much of a hobby.
I mean what Discords do you participate in? What Lemmy communities do you follow? What videos on YouTube do you like to watch?
You can reframe this and say, “I like to participate in online chat forums about the latest gaming news and technology (discord). I look for cool recipes and cooking techniques (Lemmy cooking community). And I love trying to find new funny comedians to listen to (YouTube).” I think if you narrow it down to the interests you enjoy, rather than “dicking around online” you’ll find that you have interesting things to talk about.
Obviously those examples are my own, but I’m sure you use those platforms because they feed you certain content that you enjoy.
Someone else said asking what your current obsession is would be a good icebreaker. Do you think that would be better?
I feel like that way nontraditional hobbies could be included so you could talk about things like Lemmy or whatever your favourite Youtuber is up to. Would that bring up the same level of anxiety?
Have you seen that ludicrous display last night?
What was he thinking walking it in like that?
I am a team manager, on status meetings on fridays I always ask if someone has good plans for the weekend, and on monday I ask how was your weekend.
I get a lot of silence, and most of the time I tell some bits of what I did, but from time to time someone tells something about what they did.
I think that is good for the team, since we are all remote, it’s a little bit of socializing and have something to talk about other than work.
At my old organisation we always had mandatory “check ins” at the start of weekly meetings where everyone took turns saying whatever was on their heart and how their day was going.
Always a bit awkward at first with a new team, but a month in and people would really open up, and it was really helpful as manager to figure how people were holding up. Especially during covid/lockdown.
Do you like getting your asshole licked by a fat man in an overcoat?
Who’s asking?
