I put myself out there, I meet people, I try, I’m still struggling with a blank mind 10+ years later. I shouldn’t really say blank; it’s dominated by an internal monologue going “What should I say? I don’t know what to ask.”
So to silence that internal monologue I focus on observing the environment. Great now my focus is on observation and I still have nothing to say or ask. Or I’ll just vibe with the music in a club/lounge environment. And again, nothing to say because I’m focused on vibing with the music.
If the other person is chatty and gives me plenty of info to work with I can make comments, ask follow-up questions, and keep the small talk going, but when there’s the long pauses, or when the person isn’t chatty, or when we need to move from small-talk to something deeper, I turn into a blank canvas with a paintbrush and no paint. No matter how much “exposure therapy” I do by going out and meeting people I can’t seem to get past this blankness, nor can I seem to silence the internal monologue while also having leftover bandwidth for conversation.