A silent lunch table on an overwhelming Monday. Two students making a trek through the hallway with a common destination. Waiting for parents in the Davern Lobby. Silence can strike anywhere, and on-campus comings and goings provide a multitude of slots for it. For many, this gap in conversation or lack thereof is one that needs to be filled. What could be a gateway to a friendship or just a positive addition to one’s day is simply a conversation starter away.

At St. Paul Academy and Summit School, students take an annual retreat, with the purpose of bringing the students together and creating new friendships that last beyond high school years. During these retreats, students are encouraged to learn to speak to new people in assigned two-person groups, called di-ads. With just an assigned question to answer separately, a conversation blooms and creates closer ties between two students who would have otherwise never spoken to each other. “The major benefit of talking to new people is to make friends with whomever you are talking to. This means that you always have someone to reach out to if you are in a tight spot, or if you just want to talk about whatever is on your mind,” senior Zach Zanaska said.

The simple and almost-mandatory “hello” just isn’t enough to reveal what two people have in common and open the doors for a memorable conversation. In everyday instances it is inconvenient to delve into analysis of Shakespeare passages but insufficient to expect a conversation to appear out of thin air. However, smiling is a key prerequisite to a successful conversation. You are infinitely more likely to converse with someone after smiling compared to a neutral expression.

Apart from a smile, words need to be exchanged for a conversation to happen. The stereotypical weather may be an eye roller, and “what’s your favorite color” may be considered crossing a line, but both are well-intended questions that get at the anatomy of an ideal icebreaker.

The seemingly stale remark on the weather is one that allows for further commentary and addition of the others’ opinion. Opinions could lead to experiences could lead to the retelling of a story, and that is why it’s such a highly utilized assertion. As for the favorite color question, it represents a goal of working towards learning something about the other person that could possibly lead to the discovery of a common trait two people share.Sophomore Class Team Leader Mollie Ward, who helps in organizing retreats that focus greatly on student conversation, sees conversation as a means of getting to know others.  “You have opportunities to get to know and appreciate the strengths that other people are bringing or the experiences that they bring to you,” Ward said.

I’m not asking you to make every attempted conversation result in the recitation of the week’s forecast or monologue about different preferences of reflected wavelengths. For the less traditional, simply scanning the location for something noteworthy and remarking on that is a good call. Following the remark with an open ended, non yes-or-no question shows interest in what the other person is saying. From there, staying attentive naturally leads to a discussion that both members of the conversation will actively participate in, and most likely enjoy. Ward describes what she learned from and applies to when helping decide on topics for student conversation at retreats: “”It has to be open ended, but it has to be something that everyone can relate to. It doesn’t have to be like an icebreaker on a table tent. Those di-ad questions that start bigger conversations are usually better to be more universal. It has to be teetering, a little bit on the edge of safe, but pushing yourself”. Mastery of weaving such questions into a conversation is the key to easy small talk and can make being social a lot easier.  “Talking about vacations, favorite places to visit or places they want to visit can bring up interesting results. You can follow that up by asking what they liked about that place. This lets you know at least a little bit about their personal interests without intruding too much,” Zanaska said.

Ward advises “going into it [conversation] with an open mind and an open heart”.

Just as actually starting a conversation is important, it’s also relevant how you carry it on. Trying too hard will make a conversation contrived and it will end disastrously no matter what. Taking too long to think about what to say next will cause awkward silences and from there the cycle goes on forever.  Take a breath. Most likely, it’s not life threatening that you talk to someone. (Unless it is life threatening, in which case panic is justified). A common fear is to say the wrong thing and offend or bore someone. “Not knowing what the persons interests or opinions are is what makes me nervous. I do not want to offend someone that I do not personally know by upsetting what they value,” Zanaska said.  However, it’s more likely to make that mistake if you’re thinking about it.

A conversation takes two people at the least. Every member must have some sort of intention of making it go forward, so that takes pressure off of each individual person. It’s okay not to have a predetermined string of comments prepared, because the other person likely has thoughts of their own to add to yours. That is the very nature of a conversation, and spontaneity is what makes it interesting, beneficial, and fun. Zanaska describes the elements of a successful conversation: “If both or all members  are enjoying themselves then it could be considered a good conversation. It means that each individual is engaged and interested in the topic, [that] there are no silences, and if there are [silences], it is to think about what the other has said”.

Some people have the reverse problem: They start talking and don’t leave any clearance for the other person to talk. “In some ways, the loud person [has to] tone that down,” Ward said. Her remedy for such a situation is that “You have to know yourself. You need to know if you need to be a person who pulls someone else out or if you need to be pushing yourself out, and not count on that other person to do the perfect thing, but you figure out: what’s your role? And if [both participants] are doing the same thing, then all the better, you’re all working in concert.”