While I’ve yet to meet somebody into fishing or hunting, I agree about cars and sports. Unfortunately since I have interest in neither it can be hard to fit in sometime.

Weirdly, as somebody non interested in these common topics it also feels like it’s up to you to figure out a topic of common interest and it really isn’t.

About sports also, most people super “into” sports don’t do any. Which is ironic because a conversation about technique is something I’ll gladly have.

You don't need to know much about sports. If you can just keep up with what's in season that's typically enough. Who do you think will go to the super bowl? Have you done a final four bracket? are great questions as long as it's the right time of year.

For the few times where I had to speak to someone about topics I don't care much about, I found that simply asking questions to learn about them ( as well as the person I'm speaking to) is enough.

"What team do you support? Has it always been the case? How do you think they compare to <well-known other good team>?" "What car do you drive? Any particular reason for that car model? What's the brand's best and worst things? Oh, that piece tends to break easily; pardon my ignorance, but what's the purpose of it?" "Any key difference in the way you hunt/fish this or that animal, or the time of the year during which you hunt/fish? I don't know that word, what does it mean? Do you have any anecdotes about some hunting/fishing you did?"

Those have to be adapted to the person and situation, but they are pretty good to keep a conversation going. People love to speak about their interests, and a lot love to even teach about them. Putting yourself as the listener makes them perceive you as nice, and you might even gather interesting information to yourself, or at least gather enough knowledge to have an easier time speaking about it next time.

Being a good listener is key for any relationship, however brief it may be.

Definitely agree on the listening and just asking questions. It helps to have one or two factoids about many subjects to sneak into any conversation.

    I found that simply asking questions to learn about 
    them ( as well as the person I'm speaking to) is enough.

This is such a great insight and skill.

This is something that 99% of "nerds" don't understand about sports. You don't have to fake your way through "knowing about sports" to have a conversation around it.

Suppose you're in Buffalo, NY and you don't know a thing about sports. However, unless visiting with your eyes and ears closed, it would be difficult not to see that the city is really into its football team.

If you are "stuck" in a conversation with a Bills fan and don't know a thing about football, you could just ask - are the Bills good this year? what's it like being a Bills fan? are Bills fans as crazy as they say? how did you come to be a Bills fan - were your parents Bills fans?

There's like 100 possible conversation angles there that don't require any knowledge of sports

Discussions like these show that some people really block out anything beyond their specific interests.

I don't care about superhero movies, so I haven't seen any of the Marvel or DC movies, yet I still know they exist and sometimes I know which one is being promoted right now. If I got stuck at a table somewhere with someone who is a big fan of them, we could have a conversation. It'd mostly consist of me asking questions, but that'd work fine, because as a fan he'd have opinions to share. Same thing with sports or anything, really.

Right! It's so simple to me, that I actually get kind of frustrated with people who haven't figured this out.

Yeah, I noticed this too about sportball people - they’re generally out of shape and not actually athletic (I’m fit and active in several outdoor sports). I just find watching or talking about sports excruciatingly boring. To me it’s the same thing as pornography, watching other people who are really good at it while you are a bystander, but your brain gets the physiological and-psychological signal that you’re actually part of the action. Though I don’t recommend the latter as a potential topic of conversation.

I don't have the same experience at all. The people who I know and have met which enjoy watching sports come at all levels of fitness. I am not that interested myself but quite many of the members of my running club enjoy watching sports and some of them can run 3 hour marathons.

And if you have ever met football ultras most of them are very fit.

Are you coming from UK or US perspective? Never heard the term Ultra.

What are football ultras?

Somewhere between dedicated fans of (often working class) European Football teams and paramilitary organisations. Green Street starring Elijah Wood is a film accessible to overseas audiences detailing the cultural phenomenon n the UK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultras

In Europe however, Italy in particular, organised crime is embedded in the structure - e.g. Gennaro Di Tommaso aka "The C0rpse", the leader of Napoli's ultras whose approval is needed before a match can take place

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/curva-nostra-mob-infilt...

Extremely fanatic soccer "fans", aka hooligans. Basically just an excuse to be antisocial.

the mob that pretends to be the core fans.

This may be a more recent thing, but I find a lot of the "sportsball" conversations are actually just slightly disguised conversations about gambling. Everyone is on Draft Kings and when they talk about this guy's stats or that team's past, or this game's expected score, they're just talking about betting and stuff. I don't think a lot of the sportsball people are even really fans of the sport, they're just looking at stats and betting.

As somebody who enjoys both watching and playing sports, I agree and I think that sports betting is so gross and harmful.

I have a question, though. What's up with the "sportsball" thing?

I mean, I'm very familiar with it. It just seems like it's always been used as a mildly derogatory term by people who really dislike sports and sports fans. What does it mean to you? No wrong answers.

> It just seems like it's always been used as a mildly derogatory term by people who really dislike sports and sports fans.

Yeah, actually saying 'sportsball' in conversation in a non-ironic way is an excellent way to signal that you have poor social skills. No need to yuck someone's yum.

That's certainly been my experience. I've never heard it used in a way that wasn't a mild yucking of somebody else's yum.

I don't know. OP used the word and I just repeated it. I figure it's a generic term for the kinds of ball sports that popular culture follows and/or bets on: Baseball, Basketball, Football and so on.

Yeah, it's funny. I find a lot of sedentary sports-enjoyment (particularly fantasy sports) to be way "nerdier" than stereotypically nerdy stuff like D&D.

That said, the sports fans I know really are quite the wide spectrum when it comes to their actual sports/exercise participation. Lot of very active people.

Yeah, it's kind of the social equivalent of knowing a few phrases in another language

If only someone could create an app or website to help us uninformed out with common phrases to use. Sentences like:

"Did you see that ludicrous display last night?"

The problem with this is when the convo goes beyond the initial common phrase. The response is likely to go more in depth. Then you're stuck nodding awkwardly, laughing awkwardly or just fudging it further... Awkwardly. Personally if it's a sport I'm not into I'll just admit that and explain why. The conversation will usually naturally move on and you won't seem phony.

The person you’re responding to was making a joke/reference.

https://youtu.be/EfE-ts3IwPM?t=68

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1320784/

The thing about Arsenal is they always try to walk it in.

I've been known to drop this one in conversation to see if people pick up on it.

Have no idea if it's still true, but it certainly was in Wenger's time.

The current trendy insult is that they rely on set pieces too much.

Let's use blockcha... I mean, AI!

Huh, an AI that reads the latest news and suggest conversation topics would be funny, if conversing with someone interested in celebrity gossip, then it could delve into that topic, e.g. "What about astronaut Katy Perry, am I right?! Did you read that she was spotted having a meal with Justin Trudeau?".

"How about this season, huh?"

"You catch the game?"

"They got some bad calls."

"Aren't you concerned that so many people tie their civic identity to watching some rich guy's overproduced commercial sports theatre, but are disinterested in actual civics?"

> I've found that no mater what country I've been to, or what social classes the people belong to, three topics have a 95% success rate when it comes to social relations with guys: sports, cars, fishing/hunting. And to some degree handywork.

Have you generally been to the Americas and Western Europe? Sports is the one universal, that makes sense in my experience too. But most people outside the rich upper class don't give a hoot about cars anywhere in the parts of Asia I've been to. And if you talked about fishing/hunting, you'd probably get weird looks trying to decide if you came from some modern hunter-gatherer cult.

I think most people here are mistaking cars as a subject for things like hotrods or racing or classic cars.

But you really can kick off a decent conversation by just commenting and asking about what they drive, usually by starting with "I see a lot of people prefer X here". And you end up learning a decent amount about them.

Assuming they have a car (which a lot of people don't), this would be on the same level as asking about what phone they use - some people carefully chose theirs and want to talk about it, but for a lot of people it's just a thing that exists and gets the job done. It might get the conversation going, just the same as many other topics, but it won't be a conversation they'll especially enjoy in most parts of the world.

Talking about cars in Western Europe isn't that safe bet either. In cities like Stockholm most people are not interested in cars. And similarily hunting and fishing are niche interests in urban areas.

What do Asians talk about then?

In the US, I've never met one who doesn't enjoy talking about food, especially boba and banh mi.

Beyond that, it just depends on the person...

Talking about the variety of facilities the region has, about traffic, new constructions - anything development related is guaranteed to get the conversation going. There's a lot of rapid urbanization and change going on, and people always have something they want to get off their chest about it.

If you don't mind a bit of griping, politics is not a bad shout either. People aren't hardline attached to one side or the other as much here, and even when they are, they're much more willing to admit corruption at a local city level even if their favourite party is in charge. Complaining about corruption is a common pastime.

Movies and music are also pretty good generic options, as are motorbikes or electric scooters with younger guys in their early-mid twenties.

Having lived in Japan, and spent a fair amount of time in China: food, fashion, music, film, culture and politics (in a polite way), work, among other things

However unless you're planning to visit very rural places I genuinely don't think I've ever met anyone in East Asia talk about cars or hunting. Even in Europe among Millenials or Gen Z I don't know anyone who is into cars at all, a lot of younger people in the larger cities don't even have drivers licenses.

Food of course!

Even in Western Europe.

Hunting is extremely rare (and generally an indicator of old money or living in an extremely rural environment).

Fishing is a lot more popular but even that tends to date you a bit. At least for Eastern Europe, fishing is a lot more popular among the 45+ year olds.

OP is primarily speaking about a North American perspective, I think.

Even here in Sweden a lot of the people fishing are older Polish immigrants unless you live in s rural area.

Seems to be quite popular with younger Polish immigrants in the UK. Although a key point of difference which might make it difficult to find common ground with British anglers is they often seem to regard cooking and eating the fish (rather than throwing it back) and important part of the exercise. More likely to find agreement if they stick to slagging off the UK government ;-)

"Going/been anywhere nice recently" is a pretty good one in the UK - most people have some kind of holiday and I don't follow football and my interest in cars is probably limited to my occasional bouts of incandescent rage at people not signalling correctly on roundabouts...

In the US I was taught you don’t need to signal at roundabouts. Am I doing something terribly wrong?

Might be a regionalism, but here in Oregon, we don't signal going in, but signal right before we intend to exit. That way the next incoming driver can enter the roundabout and keep traffic flowing. We have a LOT of roundabouts though, like dozens upon dozens, and many of them are over saturated. It may be a local response to the traffic patterns here, not sure.

Roundabouts are a one way road, you don´t need to signal when driving on it. But you do need to indicate when you are leaving the roundabout.

The most important thing is for everyone to speak the same protocol, provided that the protocol meets some minimum standard of fitness-for-purpose. But… yeah, I think you're doing it wrong.

>Signal when you change lanes or exit the roundabout.

California Driver Handbook

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/web/eng_pdf/dl600.pdf

The UK version:

https://www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/roundabouts.html

I think the main difference is the expectation that you start signalling, if appropriate, before joining the roundabout. My main complaint (OK one of my main complaints) is that drivers turning right start signalling right and then forget to signal left as they leave...

Which countries have you been to? Sports I'll give you. Cars are already questionable. But fishing and hunting!?

Now I'm interested: what are your top three topics for talking to women? :)

> Now I'm interested: what are your top three topics for talking to women? :)

Obviously, the exact same topics for talking to men?

Can't believe you would make such a hateful and misogynistic comment.

Have you found a generally equal level of interest in hunting, fishing, sports, and cars across the genders?

That’s not been my experience and, as a basic social skill, I seek to adapt my conversational topics to the audience’s interest.

> Have you found a generally equal level of interest

Of course. Anyone who rejects gender equality is a sexist bigot and likely a transphobe.

Gender equality does not imply nor require gender indistinguishability.

Rejecting the latter does not imply rejecting the former, but of course you know that and are just being a gender-neutral cylindrical appendage.

> Gender equality does not imply nor require gender indistinguishability

Careful, in a few years talking like this will get you canceled.

> being a gender-neutral cylindrical appendage

Now that's better! This is what we must all strive to be.

I was rather mocking the parent poster for suggesting such overly cliché topics. In reality, men and women share many common interests (music, movies, food, travel, etc.) which I also think are more universal than cars and fishing.

Your comment is the only one hateful here. Where I'm from there are absolutely different topics to talk to men and women. You may hate it as much as you like, but that's the world many of us live in.

He's very probably mocking "the woke" by exaggerating how they criticize people...

Oh, man. I think you are right, I can't believe i took it at face value.

In my country (western Europe) talking about hunting/fishing would put get you side looks and take you for a very rural or conservative weirdo.

Sports and cars is more common with the older generation, but anyone below 35 will probably be uninterested, unless your circle is finance or blue collar work.

What do people talk about in your country?

politics, music, food (Berlin here)

I guess the general stuff is movies, Netflix shows, music, your last short weekend trip, and pretty much everyone has their own personal non work thing, usually attached to a club or group (hiking, photography, whatever).

I guess in that last category sports are commonplace, but it’s more “I’m training for a marathon next month” or “you should come bouldering sometime” rather than following professional sports on tv.

This sounds like it’s particular to your friend group rather than some coarse regional geography. If you toss a rock in Western Europe, you’ve got a better chance of hitting a football fan than someone who wants to go bouldering or train for a marathon.

>If you toss a rock in Western Europe, you’ve got a better chance of hitting a football fan than someone who wants to go bouldering or train for a marathon.

Yes and no. If you HAVE to choose a specific hobby, football will have more chances than others; but it will still work in a minority of cases and assuming carries an implication.

A comparison I could make is starting a conversation in the US with 'did you watch fox news yesterday?'. Out of all channels, it's the most watched one; but you still have high chances of asking a non-viewer, and then get hit by negative connotations.

Personal hobbies are much better topic for various reasons (you don't assume, people will naturally be exited about discussing their own, etc).

Is this a function of Western Europe, or an urban area? There’s quite a bit of hunting and fishing in rural Western Europe…

If that's true then The Onion's "The Sports Team From My Area..." T-shirt[1] is a guaranteed (conversation|fight) starter.

[1] https://store.theonion.com/collections/best-selling-products...

No you are wrong, usually it's conlang, microtonal music, and functional programming ;).

Wow, you've had a very different experience, and apparently met very different people (or at least saw different sides of them).

I have never discussed those things with my friends or acquaintances anywhere in the world, across many countries... I don't know anything (or care about) any of them, so I suppose I self-select out of those groups.

The people I end up bonding with (all over the world) are usually because of hiking and outdoor stuff, board games, Dungeons and Dragons, martial arts, history, travel, food, whiskey, couch surfing or hosting, national parks, musical theater, etc.

If someone tried to talk to me about cars, sports, or dead fish, I'd probably just excuse myself. It'd be a huge bore for me and them alike.

I don't doubt what you said, that these are popular topics with men in some parts of the world (especially parts of North America). But it's also totally possible to go through life meeting many people without ever discussing any of those, thankfully...

Hunting/fishing are one type of "outdoor stuff".

Indeed

Like how bombs / machine guns are types of “engineering”? :)

Sure.

I believe that anyone who eats meat cannot take a moral stance against hunting in general. An animal that lived in the wild then was killed and eaten lived a more fulfilling life than an animal in a factory farm that was killed and eaten.

I think that’s fair; I’m coming up on seven years meat-free and can confidently say that hunting is disgusting.

Remember that there is no such thing as humane slaughter, whether done in captivity or in the wild.

FWIW, I didn't mean to make it a moral argument. I'm just not personally interested in hunting and fishing, but I don't have an ethical problem with them if done in moderation. Nature is violent and ruthless... a well-aimed shot is one of the less miserable ways for a wild animal to die. And yes, they're absolutely outdoor activities :)

Like you said, it's at least better than factory farming, and in some cases, hunters are an important part of conservation efforts.

I happen to be vegan, but have also had a few friends who hunt & fish. I don't fault them for it, or hunters in general. It's just not something I would want to discuss with them or join them for. Not out of any ethical quandary, it's just not something I want to spend my time doing or thinking about (heh, they're just far less exciting when you can't eat what you catch).

The problem is that I find the conversations that flow from these openers incredibly dull. So I just stay at home and read my phone instead, however unfortunately I hear that that is correlated with various negative outcomes.

"Hi, I have no interest in you or these topics but let's converse to extend my lifespan." Beer can help with this.

In my experience, men mostly want to talk about women, money, and crypto.

This is why I prefer talking to women.