Underneath a lot of social fear sits the belief that speaking without preparing will let something humiliating escape. A minute of quick word association hands you your own evidence against that, in your own voice, which is worth far more than anyone reassuring you. Keep the pace fast, because the whole point is that there was no time to plan.

It is the lowest stakes opening there is, because the subject is neutral and the other person can pick it up or leave it. Most of the time a small remark gets a small reply, then another, and you are in a conversation you never planned. If it goes nowhere, that happens to everybody several times a week.

Personal remarks are the feared category, because they cannot be passed off as neutral. Do it first with someone safe, a therapist, an easy relative, and watch what comes back. Almost always it is warm and a little self deprecating, and that reply is the evidence you carry out into harder rooms.

A script is a safety behaviour. It quietly confirms that unrehearsed speech is dangerous, and it gives you a second job to do while talking: remembering the words, checking them against the plan, watching how they land. That extra load is often what produces the stiffness you were trying to avoid. A rough sense of what you want to say is a different thing, and it is fine.

One young woman asked a contact, in passing, whether a gallery owner needed any help. The question turned into an application and then an internship, and she described the whole thing as luck. The asking was not luck. If you hand your successes to circumstance and keep your failures for yourself, this is the habit worth interrupting, one instance at a time.