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Know a little bit about a lot of things.
Conversation is about flow. Ask aquestion, get an answer, respond to that, they respond to you. If you know a little bit about a lot of things, and you always have some way to respond to what they've said.
But also learn to take the hint. If they're giving you one word answers, they may not want to be in the conversation.
A lot of conversation is about listening, not speaking. However, if you engage in active listening, you might find the speaker will look at you more, allowing you to add in your two cents.
What do you mean by active listening exactly?
Bit of a left field suggestion but one thing that really helps is finding your people.
In my younger years I sometimes really struggled with casual conversation, I often felt like I was the weird guy who had nothing to say.
It turned out that was only really true when I was spending a lot of time with people with whom I had very little in common. As I got older I eventually found "my people". Friends who I click with, who I share values and interests with, who communicate similarly to me.
It's not about finding people who are just copies of you, that would be pretty boring and make for a real social echo chamber. You want a range of friends with different interests, from different walks of life. But you want them to be, for lack of a better term "compatible" with you.
If you happen to be neurodivergent then that adds a whooooole extra layer of complexity to conversational compatibility. There's a stereotype that autistic people are awkward or socially inept, which is complete rubbish. They just communicate differently to neurotypicals. Put a bunch of similar autistic people in a room together and watch them have no trouble at all making conversation with each other, in their own style.
Anyway, maybe this isn't relevant to you, and you're already happy with the people in your life. But it's worth taking the time to examine whether the reason you struggle to make conversation is because you're trying to make it with the wrong people.
The thing that cracked it open for me was Dale Carnegie "How to Make Friends and Influence People". It is very old fashioned but the core message is evergreen. People aren't interested in you. They are interested in themselves. The more you are interested in them the more interested they will be in you. They will eventually want to know what's on your mind but only because it's a mind that shares interest.
This sounds kind of manipulative because we are only doing it for attention. But the thing is people can smell that from a mile away. You actually have to BE interested and remember the things. You can't just pretend to listen or you will get the opposite effect.
10/10 would recommend
I make new friends constantly just by being genuinely interested in them. I ask a question and while they talk I think of the next question and so on. Eventually, they show genuine interest in return.
It really works when used appropriately.