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[Rolan7]

That's my point though, you don't have to be good at talking.

Okay look.  Imagine some nerd walked up to you and said.  "Sure has been warm lately.  Do you like dragons?"
How would you react?  Even though that's a freakin silly thing to say to a stranger.

Again, there's no harm in trying.  Worst case, the "popular" kids will look down on you - literally meaningless, they'd find an excuse anyway.  Don't live under their thumb, get yourself out there and find a common spirit.

Though, to be real, I didn't always technically find a *shared* interest.  More like I found a fellow nerd who was really into something I didn't know.
And that turned out awesome!  I learned so much interesting and banal crap about Sonic canon.  And more importantly, had a friend.  It was only boring at the beginning.

Also I kinda ignored the fact that you were asking about girls instead of friends.  Because, from what I can tell, it's similar.  A SO is someone who might have been a friend, but with the added factor of "I'm willing to kiss this person".

[i2amroy]

Yeah, but what if you just suck at talking to people?

Only way to get better is to practice, sadly. Good early stages are to try thinking conversations through on your own in your head, trying to come up with a variety of different responses to different comments. Finding a variety of basic "safe" topics to talk about also helps, as does finding some good ways to get a conversation started in the very first place (which is generally the most awkward moment of most conversations, I find). Beyond that you pretty much just have to talk to people, and actually pay attention to not just the conversational content but the way that the conversation flows. Practice makes perfect and all that jazz; nobody ever sits down and plays a bach piano concerto perfectly without ever having played the piano before, and nobody is a perfect conversationalist at the beginning, you become one by working your way through the awkward beginnings (those first mary had a little lamb playings on the piano) until you progress beyond them.

A few other big tips:
1) Questions are always good things to use in awkward conversations (though not to the point where everything out of your mouth is a question). When you are listening to the answer to a question you aren't doing the talking, but you are still viewed as an active part of the conversation. Combine that with the fact that generally the topic that people are the most comfortable on is talking about themselves, and it's totally possible to go through a conversation where 70%+ of it just consists of you sitting there listening. And as long as you actually pay attention to what people are saying and react with head nods/etc., then you're still an active part of the conversation and viewed as contributing.
2) When you do say things, try to (if possible) make them things that the other person in the conversation can draw parallels to (though that you still know enough to talk about). This is a big part of the active listening mentioned before, if you listen to people and learn what they have experienced, then that lets you make comments that connect with them specifically. For example since I'm a college student griping about loans/etc. works great as a smoother in conversations if you can get on the topic, because everybody has some sort of story about it and can connect to it personally.
3) While it might seem a little pointless, it's worth checking out at least some of the basics on things that "Everybody knows", because it guarantees you to have a few safe topics that you can turn to that are guaranteed to connect with those listening (sort of like the loans topic I just mentioned). Knowing at least the basics guarantees that you can work with the topic and fit it into the conversation and gives you a place to go if it gets mentioned, instead of running into one of those awkward silences that show up when somebody tries to change the topic to something that nobody else knows anything about.

Honestly the biggest thing I can stress about being a good conversationalist is knowing at least the bare minimum basics of a variety of different topics that other people might be interested in. Combined with a few good questions you if you can find at least one thing that the other person in the discussion is interested in then you've found yourself a topic to ask questions about their interests in, which will buy you more time to find another topic that they like and that you at least know the basics about. A large portion of more relaxed conversations literally just break down to one person explaining something or telling stories about something while the other person listening, then a switch up to whatever topic you at least both know a little bit about. The best conversations come when you are both passionate about something, of course, but it's totally possible (and fine) just to get along by knowing the bare basics of something that the other person is interested in, so try to pick up at least some generalities of as many different areas as you can.

[Bauglir]

nobody ever got good at talking by not doing it

as with any skill, you must begin by failing in order to learn what you're doing wrong

also, today got pretty annoying pretty fast

>be me
>driving to grocery store
>suddenly, THUMPity-floppity-flop
>ohhhhh no
>tire's blown out
>no phone, don't know any phone numbers, so have to keep driving
>grocery store is on the way to nearest place tires can be purchased anyway, so stop and get groceries anyway - it's not like the tire is getting any flatter
>put groceries in car, walk to nearest auto repair shop
>they close in 15 minutes, no chance of a tow
>run back to car, carefully maneuver it down the block, pray wheel remains intact, annoy every other driver who's got places to be during rush hour
>they don't have the right size replacement but they can put the spare on tomorrow morning so i can drive it someplace that does without further risk of damage
>need to take bus home
>nearing bus stop, see bus pull in
>frantically begin running
>suddenly, THUMPity-splashity-splash
>ohhhhhh no
>bottom has fallen out of bag
>gather up groceries, stagger to bus stop just as driver begins pulling away
>mercifully, they stop and let me aboard
>i'm literally trying to cram spaghetti into my pockets while assuring them that i am, in fact, a student
>"listen, just sit down, we've gotta go"

if it weren't for the fact that my day has an actual punchline i'd be a lot sadder, but still

[Sirus]

Speaking as a total lonely loser, I had pretty good luck by talking about the class(es) we shared. Whether it was to ask for help with something or to joke about something in the textbook, or even badmouthing the teacher (assuming the teacher deserves it). Whatever. Point is, it's a common experience and such conversations can naturally segue into any number of other topics.

[JoshuaFH]

So I guess I've gotten abandoned by my therapist? On our scheduled meeting, which was just before the new years, I called in sick, though I wasn't really sick, I was just dreading out meeting out of some confused mix of emotions. Usually he gets right back with me to reschedule, since that's what I made it clear I wanted to do, but it's almost a month now, and nothing. It only makes sense though, I've been seeing the guy for more than a year now, and I haven't made any progress. It's obviously not his fault, I'm just such a difficult and obstinate, just a pigheaded waste of a human being, with no motivation or desire for improvement outside of just crying about how miserable I am. It's just for the best, I guess, I was fooling myself into thinking I could get better with somebody else's help.

I have a bad foreboding feeling, an ominous inkling that is making me believe that something dire is on the horizon. The internal pressures that make up the tectonic forces inside my life are building pressure,  such that something will have to budge eventually. Once that happens, once this omen comes to a head, I have the feeling that it will either be life-changing, or life-ending, but I have no clue which. There is no god for me to pray to, nor will there ever be.

[Sirus]

@ Joshua:

Could your therapist have become unavailable for some reason? I know that a therapist my dad was trying to see won't be in the office for something like three months for maternity leave.

I would give him/her a call to try and schedule another appointment.

[Rolan7]

As a fellow pig-headed waste of a human -
They failed, not just you.  It's their job to fix people, or at least stay in freakin contact.  People aren't perfect, and sounds like you got a particularly imperfect one.

Yeah, you failed by dodging the appointment.  We both know that.  But they were obliged to follow up, and didn't.  If you can find someone else, you probably should.

[Yoink]

There is no god for me to pray to, nor will there ever be.

You could join my church. I don't demand human sacrifices (although I'll take 'em if you're offering) and I don't have many rules.

Seriously though, I get the feeling that your "foreboding feeling" is mainly just linked to feeling bad about the therapist situation. Possibly.

[i2amroy]

12amroy, those 'everybody knows' topics don't exactly exist as far as I'm concerned. At least, I don't know them.

My point was that if you don't know some you should make an effort to learn a few. Want to be able to talk more smoothly with sports guys? Go read a few articles about the current state of a few different sports. Even if you don't know much it should be enough to get them talking when combined with you asking questions, or to work in a segue to something you actually know more about. Want to be able to talk more with science-y people? Go look up some articles about some recent developments in science. Video gamers? Go read about some of the more popular video games. Economists? Go read some articles about the basics of economic theory. General people? Maybe watch some of the recent movies or more popular tv shows that have come out. Having something that you both at least know at least a little bit about is one of the core foundations of any conversation, so making sure that you know at least a few different sets of basics goes a long way towards making conversations less awkward. (I mean personally I know almost nothing about sports, but since I know at least the basic rules of the games and some of the very basic way that things are formatted I can at least stumble along for a brief period of time with most sports people, if only by a combination of asking questions about things and pretending that I know sorta what they are talking about).

And in an absolute worst case there should always be at least a few things that you already know about. School registration horrors, what class schedule you're taking, what the recent weather has been like, how long until you graduate, loan tribulations or bad jobs if you're older, you almost certainly already know a few things that almost everybody knows, which is enough to get a rough, stilted conversation going. Put at least a little bit of effort into learning the basics of a few more and you'll be set up enough to get through conversations without too much difficulty.

[Shook]

So on an entirely different note, i'm sure some of you have caught on by now that there's some fuckery going on in my hands. Right now, my hands are doing pretty okay... But instead, a major nerve in my left upper arm (ulnar nerve probably, if the light tingling in my pinky finger is anything to go by) hurts rather much. This is definitely something i need to bring up with Mr. Physiotherapist, because i don't want any lasting nerve damage anywhere.

[inteuniso]

So on an entirely different note, i'm sure some of you have caught on by now that there's some fuckery going on in my hands. Right now, my hands are doing pretty okay... But instead, a major nerve in my left upper arm (ulnar nerve probably, if the light tingling in my pinky finger is anything to go by) hurts rather much. This is definitely something i need to bring up with Mr. Physiotherapist, because i don't want any lasting nerve damage anywhere.

That's unfortunate.

There is no god for me to pray to, nor will there ever be.

You could join my church. I don't demand human sacrifices (although I'll take 'em if you're offering) and I don't have many rules.

Seriously though, I get the feeling that your "foreboding feeling" is mainly just linked to feeling bad about the therapist situation. Possibly.

Nah, I've had the foreboding feeling too, but it's more that this is the third year humanity has been consuming more than the planet can naturally replenish and instead of changing the tune it's mostly been more of the same path of empire that's been pursued since Sumerian times and that usually leads up to a collapse but it's interesting now that there's nowhere for anyone to run to and there's nowhere to hide thanks to post-modernity, post-Holocene Era. It's actually the first year of the Anthropocene Era, so we're officially in 0AE. I would suggest coming up with ways to produce more food on less arable land.

[Baffler]

We had to do the first proper lab report of the year this week, and I just got my grade on it back. The experiment was just weighing water to determine the error on our volumetric glassware for future experiments, so it was kinda short. We're supposed to have a safety section discussing the various chemicals and hazards associated with them in lab reports, but the only one was water. Then, because it was the weighing water lab and he had tons of paint-dry reports to read and grade about it, I decided for some fucking reason that it would be a good idea to include this information in the safety section in addition to my line about normal procedures for handling glassware and whatnot.

Lesson learned. He was severely unamused.

[TheBiggerFish]

Bububububu THAT MAKES SENSE.

[BlackFlyme]

That shit is legit. And technically legally required.

[TheBiggerFish]

I mean, it's the MSDS for water, it is how you deal with water, and water IS chemical.