Dear LPG readers,  

I think that for all the technology in the world (which I agree does have its place), there is nothing as therapeutic as a good old-fashioned chin wag.  Perhaps my hypothesis is based on personal experience because nearly everyone who knows me tells me that I have always had the gift of the gab. For some reason, I find it really easy to strike up a conversation with nearly anyone the first time I meet them. I think that talking is my greatest gift because I know many people who have told me that they wish they could find a way to spark a conversation with an unfamiliar person as easily as I can.  

I have met so many people who I just know would never have ever approached me to say hello, and, after a few minutes, we have got to a stage where they can actually talk about that very subject with me.  

I think it is hard enough to make friends when you are young and you find yourself stuck with bunches of complete strangers day after day.  School, I think, is the perfect example of a place where we find the first strangers, one of which is likely to become a best friend in the end.  I think that friend-finding works so well on that first day because we are all in it together. Most of the children in the classroom on that first day don’t know many of the other students. I can’t remember that far back but I defy any grandmother to have not been stressing on the morning that they found themselves saying goodbye to their own little one at the school gates, only to find that they have so much to tell about that first little friend that they have met when we went back to collect them. 

I think that the biggest reason that it is so much easier to strike up a conversation when you are that age is because most of us have not yet learned about being embarrassed or shy, and those who have will find friend-making a slower process, but a more forthright child will get them talking in the end.  

The world of work is another place where we are forced to get talking but, as the new colleague, we usually have so many questions about the work we are doing, and those questions are the perfect icebreaker as we ask the people around us for the answers that we have no choice but to learn about.  

It is also the case that in both those situations, the strangers are not going to be strangers for long because you are stuck with them to an extent. We will see them day after day and have to talk in the end, but when we get to retirement we have to start all over again in a way and there are a couple of differences which cannot be ignored.  

Until you retire, if you want an education or to get paid, you have no choice but to see certain people day in and day out while, once you retire there are no such restrictions. We often end up with days full of time to fill and none of our established friends to fill them with. The other thing that we bring into our retirement are all those inhibitions that we did not have on that first day in primary school, and there is often not a mum to confide in if it is all going wrong. 

I think that the answer to that is remembering more about the way that you feel than the way that you start a conversation. Even though it is not a problem for me, I have been told how hard it can be to walk up to a stranger and start talking to them. That ‘what if’ feeling has to be really hard to overcome… what if they ignore me, what if they laugh at me, what if I say the wrong thing, what if they tell others about a bad impression they have formed about me.  

The answer has to be that all those things are likely to happen sometimes, but the times when you offer a compliment or a warning that is received graciously will outweigh the negative experiences. If I see someone with a coat, shoes or even a dog that I admire, I have no reservations when it comes to telling them, and I cannot count the number of times I have felt the need to warn a person that their bag is open or the label at the back of their collar is showing while waiting at the supermarket checkout.  

I appeal to all those really reluctant conversation-starters to have a go. It really does get easier if you keep trying, and I honestly believe that communication is one of the most important gifts we can have in life whatever stage of it we have reached.  

LT, Dulwich.