Shy people, when you meet someone new, what would make it easiest to feel comfortable talking to them?

I can’t even begin to describe my feelings about talking to someone new. I really like people, but what I really want is to know them—who they are, what they do, what they think, how they have fun, how weird they are, what kind of secrets they keep, do they have any interesting commonalities with me, etc.

But when you meet someone new, you can’t launch into an interview, normally. Some people are amenable to it, especially online, but still, you mostly have to do the small talk dance to see if you can build any basis to go further.

I think that shy people may be more afraid of how others will react than non-shy people. So if you could open a conversation any way you wanted—so you could quickly assess whether you liked this person enough to continue talking to them, how would that conversation go?