If you're looking to lose your virginity, a critical first step is generally meeting and conversing with those of the opposite sex. If making conversation with new people is one of your challenges, this post provides 5 simple techniques to starting making conversation with anyone.

To know if this post is applicable to you, start by asking yourself this question:

Are you still struggling with any of these problems?

- You want to talk to people, but you don’t know what to say.

- You want to avoid getting stuck in awkward silences.

- You’re already in a conversation, but the other person seems to be getting bored.

- How do you make a conversation interesting?

If you answered YES to any of these, then follow the 5 Conversation Techniques in this article to start eliminating all of these problems.

Conversation Technique 1: Change The Subject

This is by far the simplest and MOST UNDER-UTILIZED conversation technique out there.

Why is this technique so under-utilized?

Because it’s extremely common to believe that changing the subject requires a “logical reason” or a “logical transition.”

For example, if you’re talking to another person about MOVIES and a thought pops into your mind about YOGA, how do you get from movies to yoga? What’s the connection? What’s the transition?

The answer is that: NO TRANSITION IS REQUIRED.

You simply start talking about yoga. You change the subject UNPROMPTED and WITHOUT ANY LOGICAL REASON. Doing this is the simplest way to avoid awkward silences. Because these silences often occur with you “run out of things to say about a particular topic.” You’ve beat that horse to death, so to speak. Then you’re fumbling around trying to come up with more on the same topic.

Example:

Person A: “Morning.”

Person B: “How’s it going?”

Person A: “Not bad. Saw Equalizer 2 last night.”

Person B: “How was it?”

Person A: “The best part was when…just kidding, don’t want to ruin it for you.”

Person B: “So you’re saying I should see it?”

Person A: “Yea, it’s worth it. Hey how often do you work out?”

Person B: “Not as much as I should, why?”

Person A: “The other day I was at yoga and the instructor [and here you tell some story about yoga].

In this example, you simply changed the topic from movies to yoga. No logical reason required.

Conversation Technique 2: Cliffhangers

Critical to changing the subject is that you DON’T NEED TO WAIT until a particular topic has become stale. In fact, you shouldn’t wait. Change the subject before the topic has been fully explored.

Doing this creates CLIFFHANGERS. These are unfinished conversational threads which can be returned to later. This is what makes conversation dynamic and interesting.

Interesting is the opposite of boring. Think about it this way – if you play a video game and you’ve fully explored every level of the game, is the game interesting anymore? No. Because you’ve experienced all of it. It only remains interesting when there is more to explore.

It’s the same with conversation. Leaving a topic NOT FULLY EXPLORED, means that interest remains. The problem is that people who are still learning to make dynamic conversation will get on ONE TOPIC and just beat it to death. That’s how things get boring.

Example:

Person A: “Morning.”

Person B: “How’s it going?”

Person A: “Not bad. Saw Equalizer 2 last night.”

Person B: “Yeah I saw that last week. It was really good.”

Person A: “Yeah there were some epic scenes in there. Hey on Friday a few of us are going to a Beer Festival over in [wherever]. You interested?

Person B: “I heard about that on the radio the other day.”

Person A: “You ever been to one before?”

Person B: “Yeah up in San Francisco a few years back [and now you can tell a story about that event].”

In this example you changed the topic from Movies to Beer Festivals without any reason or logical transition. You also left a CLIFFHANGER: the fact that you both enjoyed the movie but haven’t really finished talking about it.

So when you see this other person at the beer festival, what’s an easy way to start the conversation: “So what was your favorite scene in Equalizer 2?”

Leaving cliffhangers creates numerous opportunities to re-enter conversations smoothly and easily.

Conversation Technique 3: Tell Them Something

The key here is TELL as opposed to ASK. People WANT you to tell them things. However, people who struggle with conversation are often hesitant to “tell” people things.

The reason? Because they think that “whatever they are talking about ISN’T INTERESTING ENOUGH for the other person.”

Here’s what you need to understand: No topic is inherently interesting. What makes something interesting is YOU. It’s the passion and enthusiasm with which you talk about something. It’s the excitement and interest that YOU have in the topic, which makes the topic interesting to the other person.

What you may have experienced in your life is that when you “tell people things” they lose interest.

The reason, 99% of the time, has nothing to do with the topic. It’s because you were speaking in a way that was some combination of: (1) meek, (2) timid, (3) uncertain, (4) or simply disinterested yourself.

You were not enthusiastic about the topic either because (1) you though it “wasn’t good enough” for them or (2) weren’t even interested yourself but were trying to FORCE CONVERSATION.

Here are the solutions:

First – If you want to make interesting conversation, you need to become an interesting person.

Fortunately, becoming an interesting person is really easy: You just find things to be genuinely interested in. If you’re spending your life focused on (1) I’m nervous around people and (2) I don’t know what to say and (3) I suffer from anxiety, or anything similar, then how can you possibly have interesting things to say?

If you refocus that energy into hobbies, passions, interests and dreams, you will greatly advance your knowledge about such topics. Then you just need to share the PASSION with other people.

Second – Every topic is “good enough” for other people. As I said earlier, people WANT you to tell them things. Why? So they don’t have to think about what to say.

Many people have the exact same problem you do: “they don’t know what to say.” So if you TELL THEM THINGS, it (1) gives them topics to talk about and (2) relieves the pressure on them to think of topics to discuss.

You are basically DOING THEM A FAVOR, when you tell them things. Just make sure you tell them with passion and genuine interest, and you’ll see your conversations become instantly more lively, natural and free flowing.

Think back to the previous 2 examples. There you simply told the other person about a movie and about a beer festival. They never asked. Don’t wait for people to ask. Just tell them.

Conversation Technique 4: Disagree

Think about what would happen if all another person ever did was agree with you. Wouldn’t it become really boring?

Yes. The answer is yes.

It’s actually really hard to find another person interesting if they always agree with you. It’s like they have no personality or thought process of their own.

Unfortunately, this happens a lot in conversation without you even realizing it. And it happens because people want to avoid tension and confrontation.

Now I agree that avoiding confrontation is good. I’m not suggesting you disagree by getting angry, yelling and picking fights.

What I am suggesting is that you recognize that the desire to “avoid tension” is taken to the extreme by people struggling in conversation and social situations.

Taking it to the extreme means that you become very accommodating with your words. You “agree” simply to “make pleasantries” or “make the other person happy.”

The problem is that it DOESN’T “make them happy.” It makes them bored.

The solution is that if you have an opinion on something, SHARE IT. Don’t hold back. Risk allowing your opinions and feelings to be heard. When you do that, you’ll find that it makes the conversation more interesting and the other person more interested in you.

Conversation Technique 5: Situational Comments

Another under-utilized conversation technique is making situational comments or discussing situational topics. This is because it’s very common (particularly in dating/romantic situations) where people feel like they need to “talk about themselves” or “talk about each other.”

This occurs because people feel that in order to “get to know each other,” they need to share things about themselves with each other. And this is true. But this is also something that can be taken to an extreme.

For example, people first getting to know each other will often start bombarding each other with a bunch of questions:

- Where are you from?

- What do you do for work?

- What do you do for fun?

(I could make a list of 100 more common questions like this).

While it’s true that eventually you will need to know these things if you’re going to become friends (or romantically involved) with someone, but bombarding each other with questions at the beginning creates lots of pressure, which can make the conversation feel “heavy” and “tense.”

To lighten things up, mix in “situational conversation.” Make comments on things in your surroundings. Things you are both observing. When you see how the other person interacts with the world around them (or how they think and discuss the world around them), you are learning lots of stuff about them anyway. No bombardment of questions required.

Summary

The key to making interesting conversation is to “mix all of these techniques up.” Ask some questions. Tell them some things. Change the subject. Leave some cliffhangers. Disagree when opportunity presents itself. Talk about something situational. Ask another question. Return to a unfinished topic (from a previous cliffhanger). Tell them something else. Change the subject.

Just keep switching back and forth. One to the other.

If you’ve struggled with conversation and social interaction, recognize that your struggles relate primarily to trying to find “the right thing” to say.

There is no “right thing.”

If you’re search for the “right thing” has made you invisible amongst your peers and potential romantic partners, then stop searching for it.

Instead, just start mixing up the 5 conversational techniques discussed here and you’ll suddenly find other people taking an interest in you. Even the ones who barely used to notice that you were there.

If you're a man who found this post helpful, check out my follow-up video called the Conversation Formula which goes further into the details of making interesting and attractive conversation with women.