I want to challenge my confidence and have more interactions with the people around me whilst I am walking around the city and clothes/food shopping.
I see so many interesting people around me, and if I am in a confident mood I will sometimes smile to them, but never have the confidence to interact more than that.
As context, I’m mid 20sF, work in an office downtown, like walking down city streets or browsing clothes stores where I see such people my age, sometimes alone or sometimes with small groups of friends.
What line could I use to quickly interact with someone that seems like a genuine question, rather than a conversation starter, and that I can rely on to use again and again so I can just focus on the confidence aspect of the interaction?
If it was 20 years ago and we didn’t have cell phones I would use ‘excuse me, do you know what time it is?’ and if they seem open continue with ‘oh good I was worried I was running late to x but I have time’, etc… so it is clear I’m not in a rush.
Another okay one would be ‘do you know where x street/shop is’ or ‘have you seen my friend who looks like x walk past’, although it implies that I would leave right after.
Does anyone have any suitable ones I could start with?