Waiting Room Etiquette

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If I'm waiting for my therapist and there are other people waiting for their appointments, what should I do to start a conversation? When would talking to someone be a bad idea?

I work in a healthcare facility, people talk about a lot of things in the waiting room..... current weather, why they are there, their kids, their jobs, their insurances, their spouses, their shopping deals..... I think if a person gives you eye contact and smiles, then it is okay to initiate a conversation.

I don't like to talk to strangers so I usually just pretend that I am busy reading a magazine or playing on my cell phone.

Personally if I'm in a waiting room, I'd rather not have to have a conversation with strangers there. Whether it's waiting for a therapist session, a doctor appointment, etc, there is usually a sense of dread or introspection to one degree or another. Most people are worried or at least have something on their mind. Some might like to relieve that with chit chat, but I'm not one of those. I wouldn't welcome someone striking up chit chat with me. I would want to just sit quietly and think my own thoughts, or read something.

I think it's okay for people not to chat with strangers in a waiting room situation. While it's also okay if they want to, at the same time it's okay to not do that, the same as on public transportation; most people are fine with just sitting pretending they're alone in a crowd. But then, I live in a major metropolitan area where if you chatted with everyone you found yourself surrounded by, nobody would get anything done in their day, as we number 10 million and you have to get a privacy bubble around you just to get through your day.

IMO for therapist is may be ok, but not for urologist/gynecologist.

Once I did this when I had just had my son, with a girl who was about 8 months pregnant. Turned out she wasn't pregnant and I had just become one of THOSE people.

Seeing as how doctors' offices are far from being one of my favorite places, I don't talk to anyone.

It may be a Dutch thing, but people waiting in the doctor's waiting room generally don't talk with eachother, AFAIK. If a patient is entering the room there will be reciprocal greeting and also if a patient walk from the doctor's room to the exit.

There are often well known magazines that waiting people can read through between the entering the waiting room and being called by the doctor. Once a week the magazines are replaced by newer magazines. Most of those magazines appear weekly. For waiting children there are some toys to play with.

Not only doctor's waiting rooms have this system, also waiting rooms from takeaway restaurants. People enter such a room, order something and then wait until the meal that was ordered, is ready. Also magazines to be read.