4 Conversation Starters for Anyone Feeling Rusty

Erin Green
3 min readNov 29, 2022

The holidays put us in the afflictive situation of needing to be social savants for at least 45 days of the year. From Thanksgiving dinner to your office holiday party, ugly sweater bashes, and everything in between, your conversational prowess is put to the test. Add a layer of anxiety from intermittent seclusion over the last two years, and Christmas Dinner suddenly sounds like a holiday horror show.

Photo by Valiant Made on Unsplash

If you haven’t mastered a solid fake cough yet, odds are you have to show up to the function, and you’ll need a few conversation starters in your back pocket to manage any chit-chat jitters. Here are a few prompts in case you’re caught in a bind.

Is this a busy time of year for you?

A general rule of thumb in conversation is to limit your yes or no questions because they don’t encourage additional rapport. However, this phrase is the exception to the rule. Although it is appropriate year round, during the holiday season, people are especially open to sharing their plans for the rest of the year, how work is winding down (or up), gift shopping, and so, so much more. And if one thing is true, everyone loves to talk about busy they are.

Upcoming Plans

What do you have coming up for New Year’s Eve? Do you have any travel plans coming…

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Erin Green
Erin Green

Written by Erin Green

A human sharing her rebooting process | Short Stories + Musings + Tips for Self-Discovery, Art + Cultural, Society

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