I organise group trips for multiple couples and somehow keep everyone happy. I host dinner parties for people who have never met each other and watch them leave as friends. I walk into conferences, charity events, weddings and rooms full of strangers and I always — always — find the people worth knowing. Someone recently told me this was a gift. I want to tell you it is not. It is a method.
I have been doing this my whole life. I moved from the UK to Florida in 2000 knowing almost nobody. I have built social circles in South Florida, in Indianapolis — where my daughter lives — and in every city I travel to regularly. I host dinners for people who are strangers to each other and watch them exchange numbers before dessert. None of this happened by accident and none of it required a personality trait I was born with.
What it required was understanding something most people get backwards: the goal when you walk into a room where you know nobody is not to be interesting. It is to be interested. That single shift changes everything that follows.
a first impression
that actually sticks
every meaningful
conversation
is the realistic
goal for one evening
I also want to say this before we go any further: walking into a room full of strangers is genuinely uncomfortable for most people. Including people who are very good at it. The discomfort does not go away — you just learn to act on it rather than be stopped by it. What looks like confidence from across the room is often just someone who has decided to move anyway.
Decide before you arrive
what you are there for
Most people walk into a room hoping something good will happen to them. The people who leave with new friends walk in knowing what they are looking for. Not in a transactional way — but with a clear intention. I am here to have one genuinely interesting conversation. That is it. One. Not to work the room, not to collect business cards, not to see and be seen. One real conversation with one real person.
When the goal is that specific and that achievable, the anxiety of the whole room collapses into the manageable task of finding one person worth talking to. You can do that. Anyone can do that.
The first two minutes
are not about talking
When you walk into a room and know nobody, the instinct is to find something to do with yourself — check your phone, get a drink, look busy. The people who navigate rooms well do something different. They pause. They look around. They read the room before they engage with it.
Who is standing alone? Who is standing in a group of two or three where the body language is open — feet pointed outward, space at the edge? Who looks like they are also looking for someone to talk to? That person is your first conversation. Not the most impressive person in the room. Not the host. The person who looks like they would welcome the interruption.
Approach the person
standing alone first
There is always someone standing alone. Always. And that person is experiencing exactly what you are experiencing — they know nobody, they are not sure what to do with themselves, they would be relieved if someone came over. You are not interrupting them. You are rescuing each other.
The approach does not need to be clever. It needs to be warm and direct. Walk over, make eye contact, smile — a real one, not a polished one — and say something true about the room you are both in. Shared context is the easiest opening in any conversation. You are both in the same room. You are both having the same experience. Start there.
Ask the one question
that opens everything
Most people ask: "What do you do?" It is a fine question but it is a closed one. It invites a job title. It boxes the person into their professional identity and keeps the conversation transactional. There is a better question — one I have used in every city, at every event, with every type of person — and it almost never fails.
What are you most excited about right now?
This question is open. It is forward-looking. It lets the person choose what version of themselves to share — their work, their family, a project, a trip, something they read last week. And it is almost impossible to answer without revealing something real. Real is where connection lives.
Listen like you mean it —
because you do
This is the step most people skip. They ask the question and then wait for their turn to talk. They are thinking about what they will say next while the other person is still speaking. And the other person can feel it — that subtle withdrawal of attention — even if they cannot name it.
Real listening is active and visible. You ask follow-up questions. You make connections between what they are saying and something you genuinely know or think or have experienced. You do not perform interest — you have it. And if you genuinely do not find the subject interesting, you ask a different question and find the thing about this person that you do find interesting. There is always something.
After 35 you have had enough conversations to know the difference between someone who is listening and someone who is waiting. Be the person who is listening. It is rarer than you think and more valuable than almost anything else you can offer in a social setting.
Introduce people to each other —
become the connector
This is where the evening changes. Once you have had one real conversation, you have a base. Now you can do the thing that turns a good evening into a great one: you introduce the people you have met to each other, specifically, with context.
Not "this is Sarah" — but "this is Sarah, she just told me the most interesting thing about how she changed careers at 42 and you have to hear it." You are not just making an introduction. You are giving Sarah a gift — someone new who is already primed to be interested in her. And you are giving yourself the position of the person who connected them.
Connectors are remembered. Long after the evening is over, Sarah will remember the person who introduced her that way. That is how a stranger becomes someone you want to stay in touch with.
Follow through
within 24 hours
This is the step that separates a pleasant evening from an actual new friendship. Most people exchange numbers or connect on social media and then do nothing. The connection sits there and fades. Forty-eight hours later it is already awkward to reach out. Two weeks later it is gone.
Send a message within 24 hours. Not a generic "great to meet you" — something specific. Reference something they said. Ask about the thing they mentioned. Share the article you thought of when they were talking. Make the message something only you could send to only them, because it is based on a conversation only the two of you had.
That specificity is what turns an exchange of numbers into the beginning of something real. It says: I was paying attention. I remembered. You mattered enough to follow through. Those three things, communicated in a single message, are the foundation of every meaningful connection I have made as an adult.
"After 35 you understand something you could not have understood at 25: the quality of your life is largely determined by the quality of the people in it. Investing in new connections is not small talk. It is one of the most important things you can do."
— Anjie, Style & Soul 35+The honest part
nobody mentions
Not every conversation will become a friendship. Not every evening will produce three new people you want to see again. Some nights you will follow all seven steps and leave with nothing but a pleasant memory and the knowledge that you tried. That is fine. That is how it works. The practice matters more than the outcome on any single evening.
What I can tell you is that over thirty years of doing this — in Wellington, in Indianapolis, in London, in Dubai, at charity dinners and dinner parties and conferences and group trips that I organised for eight couples who mostly did not know each other — the compound effect is extraordinary. The people I have met this way have become some of the most important people in my life. They have introduced me to other people who became important. The network builds itself, but only if you start the first conversation.
01 Decide on one clear intention before you arrive. 02 Read the room for two minutes before you engage. 03 Approach the person standing alone — you are rescuing each other. 04 Ask: what are you most excited about right now? 05 Listen like you mean it — phone away, full attention. 06 Introduce people to each other with specific, generous context. 07 Follow through within 24 hours with a message only you could send.
The room is full of people who would like to know you. The first conversation is the only thing standing between you and them. Walk over. Ask the question. Pay attention. The rest follows.
✦ Affiliate disclosure — some links below earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Everything listed is personally chosen and genuinely relevant to how I prepare before any room I walk into alone. Full disclosure here.
before I walk in alone
The preparation ritual matters as much as the method. These four things are in regular rotation before any event, dinner or room where I am starting from scratch.
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— Anjie, Style & Soul 35+