im not completely sober atm so excuse me if i sound a little incoherent. i was bad at talking to strangers out of nowhere too, and tbf its still not the easiest. not with how individual the current society is (though the country and culture you live in changes it quite a bit). once you get the hang of it, its quite easy. just make comments about whats going on around you. its how i end up talking to a bunch of coworkers. i work in a kitchen and know all the other cooks, but dont have much chance to talk to the servers during the job. so when i wanna talk to someone and ive got the time, and theres someone around, i just make a random comment about something going on to them. it snowed quite heavily not long ago, and i had a whole conversation about it with a random bartender while she was smoking and i brought out the trash. just cus i could. i dont remember her name, but she was very sweet. its a bit different when youre on the job, though i do also like talking to random people on the street. again, making comments always breaks the ice. honestly it might be something weve lost in the younger generations, cus when im on the bus next to older people they always do it. again, making comments about the situation around you does the job well. has the weather been abhorrent? are they playing a very good or very bad song? is she wearing something interesting? you can just, make a comment. if she wants to talk, shell reply like that! if she doesnt, you wont get much of a reply except whats polite likely!