After the summer holidays, I'll be a senior in high school. My year consists of about 100 people, and I approximate that I've never had a word with 30-50 of them. It's not that there were no occasions - while I generally don't share classes with these people, I have happened to sit next to them on the bus on a school trip or similar situations. It feels like a missed opportunity to meet someone new or make a new friend, but I just have no idea how to start a conversation - and how to keep it going once it started.
I've had a few ideas, but I don't think they would work out:
- Talk about the holidays. This is only applicable shortly after holidays (and we don't usually have trips at those moments) but then again I don't think a 'stranger' would openly talk to me about how they spent their holidays. (I don't think I would do this anyway.)
- Something school-related. But that's rather boring, right? Especially if we don't share classes, what could we say?
- Interests. But I don't think I could hold a semi-long conversation with someone about my passion for computer programming if they don't do coding themselves.
So does someone have suggestions for "small talk" to have a conversation with someone at school you've never talked to before?