One new social skill for me

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I attend the weekly coffee klatch where I live because I want to pick up some social skills. Also to prevent being isolated.

A man I'd never seen before walked directly to the chair next to me, sat, knocked gently on the elbow of my jacket (not touching me) with his knuckle, and said, "I have something I need to ask you." He wanted to know when they were coming to steam-clean our balconies. When I said, "I don't know" he turned to somebody else and did the same thing. That person didn't know either but she asked loudly, "When are they coming for the balconies, does anybody know?" And in no time she was conversing with a dozen people, including her new acquaintance. The topic changed of course. It became plants on balconies and so on.

That's such an NT thing for her to do. I did a straight Q&A. She played a game.

The weirdest thing about this is ...
they just came to steam clean my balcony today.
Seriously.

Are you at St. Pat's?
<holding my breath>

When things like that happen to me i file that away in the mental notes for sure. Asking total nonsense to break the ice... facinating approach ive never considered myself...

Isn't it how people generally talk?
I also do it when I want to know something except I go straight to "Does anybody know..." instead of asking people one by one. And I found discussion often starts from there and moves from topic to topic. It works especially well on online chats.
The reason is people usually want to talk but have no topic to talk about - give them a topic and they get talkative, then one topic leads to another.