Conversation topics for new friends, in the order that works

Science · by Simone Rainieri · 9 min read read

The best conversation topics for a new friend are the ones you can both answer at the same depth, taken in roughly this order: current situation, then opinions and taste, then formative history, then present-tense feeling. What matters more than the topic itself is that you take turns. In a 2013 experiment by Susan Sprecher and colleagues, pairs of strangers who alternated disclosures liked each other more, felt closer, and rated each other as more similar than pairs who covered exactly the same material in two blocks. Same content, same time, different rhythm, measurably different outcome.

Which means a topic list, on its own, is close to useless. Most people who ask what to talk about already know plenty of things to say. What they are actually asking is how to stop the conversation feeling like an interview in one direction or a monologue in the other.

The four levels, and what belongs in each

Think of it as four rungs. You can move up a rung when the other person has met you on the current one. You have to move back down if they do not.

Level one: situation

Where you live, what you do with your days, how you ended up here, what the week has been like. Cheap to answer, impossible to get wrong. The trick at this level is specificity rather than depth: what is your neighbourhood actually like on a Sunday is a better question than where do you live, because it gives them something to describe rather than a fact to state.

Level two: taste and opinion

What they are watching, reading, listening to, avoiding. Mild controversies. The thing everyone likes that they do not. This level is where most acquaintances stall permanently, and it is also where the best low-stakes signal lives, because how someone talks about what they love tells you more about them than a biography does.

Level three: history

Where you grew up and what that was like, the job you left and why, a friendship that ended, the decision you nearly made. This is the level people are afraid to enter and it costs less than they think. Nicholas Epley and Amit Kumar research on deep talk has repeatedly found that people expect conversations of substance with strangers to be more awkward than they turn out to be, and consistently underestimate how interested the other person will be.

Level four: present feeling

What you are actually worried about this month. What you want that you have not told anyone. Reserve this. It is the level real friendship runs on, and arriving at it before the other person is ready is the single fastest way to make a promising new friendship uncomfortable.

Thirty topics that reliably go somewhere

What does a good Saturday look like for you at the moment.
What is the best thing within ten minutes walk of your flat.
What did you think you would be doing at this age when you were twenty.
What is something everyone seems to love that you cannot get on with.
What is the last thing you got genuinely obsessed with.
What is a skill you have that never comes up.
How did you end up in this city.
What is the worst job you have had, and what did it teach you.
Who was your closest friend at eighteen and are you still in touch.
What is a thing you changed your mind about in the last few years.
What do you do when you are avoiding something.
What is a rule you have for yourself that other people find odd.
What is the most useful advice you have ignored.
What are you bad at and completely at peace with.
What did your parents get right.
What is your relationship with your phone like.
What is something you spent money on that was actually worth it.
What is the last time you were surprised by yourself.
What would you do with a free, obligation-free month.
What is something you are quietly quite proud of.
What is the film or book you have returned to most.
What is a thing about your job nobody outside it understands.
What is your least popular opinion about this city.
What is something you thought would be temporary and was not.
What kind of tired are you at the moment.
What do you miss about a place you used to live.
What is the friendship you regret losing.
What is something you want to be doing more of next year.
What is the conversation you have been meaning to have with someone.
What is a small thing that reliably improves your week.

Use these as prompts for yourself as much as for them. If you would not answer a question honestly, do not ask it. That is the whole rule.

The move that matters more than any topic

When they share something good, respond actively. Shelly Gable 2004 diary research found that how a person responds to your positive news predicted relationship intimacy and daily satisfaction above and beyond how they respond to bad news. Enthusiastic, curious, wanting-the-details responses were associated with higher relationship well-being. Polite ones were not.

So when a new friend mentions they finally handed in the thesis, the reply is not well done. It is: how does it feel, what was the last week like, what are you doing with the free evenings now. That takes eleven seconds and is probably the highest-return conversational habit anyone has measured.

Topics to avoid, and the ones people avoid for no reason

Genuinely worth avoiding early	Avoided unnecessarily
Detailed medical history	Money in general terms (what things cost here, whether you feel behind)
An ongoing legal or family dispute	Loneliness and how hard it is to make friends as an adult
Hard party-political positioning	Family, including complicated family, at the level of description
Anything asking them to take a side	What you are struggling with at work
Long unresolved grief on a first meeting	Why you left your last city

The right column is worth dwelling on. Admitting that making friends as an adult is hard is close to a universal opener, because the other person is almost certainly in the same position and has been trained not to say so. It is the reason [why just put yourself out there does not work](https://vairi.app/journal/why-just-put-yourself-out-there-doesnt-work) resonates with so many people who consider themselves socially fine.

When there is nothing to talk about, add an object

Some of the best early friendship conversation is not conversation. Two people watching the same episode, playing something, walking somewhere with a destination. The shared object supplies the topics and removes the obligation to generate them, which is why the awkward first hour goes better in a bowling alley than a quiet bar.

Online the same principle applies, and it is the basis of everything in [what is a digital third space](https://vairi.app/journal/what-is-a-digital-third-space). In Vairi chats this is why synced co-watching, shared music and prompt games sit inside the conversation rather than beside it: the thing you are doing together generates the material. That said, the honest limitation is that a game can also become a way to avoid the disclosure entirely, and two people who have played four rounds of anything without exchanging a level-two answer have not actually met. For the mechanics of keeping it going once it starts, [how to keep a conversation going with a new friend](https://vairi.app/journal/how-to-keep-a-conversation-going-with-a-new-friend) is the companion piece, and [icebreaker games to play online with someone new](https://vairi.app/journal/icebreaker-games-to-play-online-with-someone-new) covers the object side.

Key takeaways

Sprecher 2013 found that turn-taking disclosure produced more liking, closeness and perceived similarity than the same disclosure delivered in two blocks. Rhythm beats content.
Escalate through four levels: situation, taste, history, present feeling. Move up only when they have met you on the current one.
Epley and Kumar work shows people systematically overestimate how awkward substantive conversation with a near-stranger will be.
Gable 2004 found responses to good news predicted intimacy over and above responses to bad news. Ask follow-ups when something goes right for them.
Never ask a question you would not answer yourself, and answer it in two sentences so it is an exchange rather than an interview.
When conversation stalls, add a shared object rather than a better topic.

What should I talk about with a new friend?

Start with their current situation in specific terms, move to taste and opinion, then to formative history once they have reciprocated at the earlier levels. Keep each exchange two-way. A topic that only one of you can answer at depth will not build anything.

How do I avoid small talk with someone new?

You mostly do not skip it, you shorten it. Small talk is the handshake that establishes you can both take turns. Two or three exchanges at the situation level is usually enough before a level-two question lands naturally.

What are good deep conversation starters for a new friend?

Questions about change work best: what you have changed your mind about, what you thought would be temporary and was not, what you expected to be doing at this age. They invite reflection without demanding confession, and both people can answer them.

How personal is too personal early on?

The test is symmetry, not subject. Almost any topic is fine if the other person can and does match it. Anything they cannot reciprocate, ongoing crises, detailed medical or legal matters, unresolved grief, puts them in a listener role, which is a different relationship from the one you are trying to build.

Sources

Sprecher, Treger, Wondra, Hilaire and Wallpe (2013), Taking turns: reciprocal self-disclosure promotes liking in initial interactions, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002210311300070X
Gable, Reis, Impett and Asher (2004), What do you do when things go right?, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15301629/
Sprecher, Treger and Wondra (2013), Effects of self-disclosure role on liking, closeness and other impressions in get-acquainted interactions, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0265407512459033

Ready to experience connection without performance?

Start Now

Proudly listed on Launchpadly Startup Directory