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I was made to hang out with my partner's friend's new boyfriend

The only thing I knew about him was that he works in construction, because his work shirt said as much haha. I had no idea how to relate to the guy. Or even start a conversation.

Man do I say? I haven't watched sports in forever and that normally always works. I wonder if he has kids. I can jokingly talk shit about my kids all day, but if I start with that he'll think I'm fucking crazy!

Is he not drinking bud light because of politics or because the yeungling was at the top of the ice chest? He looks like he works out- should I ask him about it? Fuck, I don't know shit about gyms. How do I follow that up?

Damnit I hate parties. Is he thinking the exact same thing as me? All my partner's friend's partners are country boys and this always happens. Why is this so hard? A third of my friends are country as fuck

"So, you listen to music?"

Fuck I'm an idiot

15 minutes of the awkward silence that comes from a dash of regular anxiety and a heap of how-masculine-do-I-need-to-be-right-now-to-relate-to-a-new-human-male.

Sorry if this isn't appropriate for this sub but I like the concept and want to see more engagement and also this just happened.

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  • You're jumping too far ahead.

    The key to social grace is letting things be organic

    You introduce yourself. You maybe say who you're there with, then maybe ask how the new person met the person you know. This gives you a point of connection to start from that's always going to be present at gatherings large or small. The new person is already connected to you by the already familiar people. So you build on that and allow the conversation to flow from that.

    Easy peasy. You don't have to worry about anything except the moment. If new dude is a talker, problem solved because they're going to keep going and all you have to do is listen. If they aren't, then you know to hang back a bit and still listen while letting their flow ebb at its own pace.

17 comments