We live in a day and age where we use emails and whatsapp more than we speak to people face to face. I am no exception – If I can avoid calling someone, I will. And I think the problem that arise when we do these long enough, we forget how to talk to people and in time, we lose the ability to get to know someone better and on a deeper level.

Recently, I was attending a friend’s birthday and I met this really cute looking guy. We started chatting but as the conversation went on, the silence got louder and things got more awkward as I realise that we have both ran out of things to say. This is pretty unlike me since my friends all know me as someone who’s able to make random talks with just about anyone on planet earth. And well, the thing about me is, I have very short attention span. So when the conversation was starting to run dry between Mr Cute Guy and me, I got really bored and was just trying to think of the fastest exit strategy. I kept thinking what went wrong with the conversation until I read Instant Connection on page 114 of the August issue of CLEO, I learnt that it’s not that we have nothing to say to each other but more of we simply didn’t know the right ways to go about breaking the ice and striking a conversation. For one, instead of just talking about ourselves, we could have taken more initiatives to ask questions about the other party. Now, I can’t wait to try the tips given with the next new friend I meet!