On appropriate things to tell people as an ice breaker

[palominocorn]

My first memory is actually of my mother upending a bowl of hot soup onto my head because I refused to eat it.

But when people ask about my earliest memory, I generally tell them that it was walking through the city at night and seeing snow falling in front of the lamppost.

Comments

[codex8]

I feel like a lot of common icebreakers have this sort of effect on me and it can be vindictively satisfying if I'm in a bad mood to answer honestly.

My favorite "innocent icebreaker that I have an extremely uncomfortable answer to" is "how many siblings do you have?"

[palominocorn]

Oh man, I know a lot of people who have a hard time with that one. I would probably answer honestly that I have two... and that I haven't talked to either of them in two years because they couldn't stop beating me up. Generally grinds the whole conversation to a great awkward halt.

[codex8]

I like answering honestly because my answer is "something like 600 I'm not really sure?" And that doesn't just make people feel uncomfortable, it ensures that they know real terror.

[palominocorn]

...I admit that I wasn't expecting that answer.

[codex8]

Nobody ever does and it's ~delightful~.

Due to an interesting mental health phenomenon and a weirdly structured family system, I have a truly astronomical number of siblings, quite literally more than I could count

[stardust_rifle]

Same with me, except replace "two" with "one".