I try to collect conversation starters so I have things to talk about with people I like.
Some of them are general and work on anyone, like: “I’m moving soon!” or “how was your weekend?” or “did you see that ludicrous display last night?”. Others deal with shared interests or common friends, so they’re person specific.
What’s a word to describe collecting conversation starters? Borrowing from other languages is legit.
I got started collecting conversation starters when I heard podcast about it. I can’t remember which podcast, but I’m pretty sure they said Japanese has a word for it. It was something like “neta”. Googling around, I think I see that “neta” could mean collecting joke material.