These tips translate well into the online dating world, too; but fortunately there is more to work with there. Just look for something in their profile that interests you, and send them a message about it. Questions like you described also work well in this case.

People enjoy sharing meaning together and one way this is done is through conversation. The types of questions and responses you use make all the difference.

There's a great book by Bianca Cody Murphy from Wheaton College called Interviewing in Action. Naturally, you aren't traditionally interviewing this person, but you are trying to share information, and that is indeed a type of interviewing. However, you want the conversation to go back and forth. Deborah Fine, talks about this on her CD The Fine Art of Small Talk. She talks about a situation where Oprah had people try to start dating conversations based on phrases given by the audience.

Combining the book with the experience from the CD, we got something like this.

What's your sign? (moan, oh gosh, this is going to hell–it's also a closed ended questions, the type that gives a one word answer, such as "yes" or "no", most of the time.)

"Pisces." (You can almost hear the horns of the Titanic and the screams of a conversations going down in flames…This guy was smart–or lucky).

"Pisces?" (This could be called a simple reflection, repeating one word to get someone to elaborate more).

"Yes, Pisces, what's yours?" (Another close ended question–this conversation is tottering, but wait…)

The guy then tells the woman his sign. She, then manages to break the ice with a different type of question.

"Oh, what are some of the aspects of that sign?"

BOOM. They are off and running. The woman has asked an open ended question, one that requires elaboration.

At the end, she could paraphrase and summarize, saying something like, "oh, so your saying that sign tends to be happy-go-lucky, chance taking, etc or whatever else she thought she heard. He could always follow up with a question about the aspects of her sign.

Thus a really dull, almost predictably over-the-top question turned into a conversation with shared meaning.

As mentioned earlier, the back and forth nature is also very important; it is also important to show that you are interacting and understanding the conversation, thus the feedback, summarizing, and paraphrasing.

It's really cool when someone says, "Wow! You understand me exactly!" I get a lot using these techniques. Applied appropriately and conservatively, they are great ways to get any type of relationship, especially a potential first date, off the ground….

Excellent concrete suggestions, Seth! Thank you!:~)

@Laura – It’s not entirely obvious to me, no. You never need advice on anything?

Think of it this way. If you had an amazing and talented SigOt, what sort of things would you ask for advice on? Probably just about everything.

This technique is actually enough to take care of most people by itself. I buy things at least bi-weekly and feel compelled to have conversations with certain strangers at a lesser frequency…and I’m a friendly dude. If this were the only technique I used to start conversations, I could get by pretty well.

Most of the “other” questions you’re feeling tempted to put into the “slot” in this process probably make assumptions about the person you’re talking to.

The whole idea is to avoid making assumptions at first. You walk in with an open mind and you’ve a better chance of walking away with a full heart.

Does that make sense?