What do you like to know about a person when you first get to know them?

I want to know all the boring standard stuff first: gender, age, race, religion, occupation, hobbies and more. I think other people say that age and race and whatnot don’t matter. It’s what’s inside the person that matters. I feel like it’s important because it provides context. It allows me to make some guesses about the person’s experience. These guesses allow me to probe further, in order to get at stories that would be really interesting to me.

What kinds of things do you ask about? What do you really want to know, but don’t ask until you have a certain rapport? Why do you want to know these things?