I suck at talking to people

The easiest way to get a conversation going and keep it rolling (and get the person to like you as well) is to ask them questions about themselves. People love to talk about themselves. So get them going, and make them feel important. Listen, and ask good follow up questions. Also, smile a lot.

If you ask enough questions, eventually they may reveal something about themselves that you can relate to, then you can add some of yourself to the conversation.

When you're done, go home and look up more info on the things they were interested in. Familiarize yourself cause 1. you can never know too much, 2. if you run into them again, you'll be able to ask better questions and relate more to what they're saying, and 3. ya never know when you'll run into somebody else who has similar interests.

Talking to people you don't know is one of life's great joys, cause ya never know when a random person might turn out to be a best friend.

Jam it back in, in the dark.