For people who are extremely new and have basically never talked to strangers, one of the big concerns is about how it feels wrong to do so. Understand, this is mostly against nature. You've learned not to do this. It is actually normal to greet people. I saw an excellent example of this recently with a very shy child at one of my churches. This kid will not talk to people, will not look at them. His mother has also drummed "Don't talk to strangers" into his head to the point where he's scared of people.

Even when people talk to him, he looks away and feels uncomfortable. He's been taught that interacting with people is bad, and so he feels strange(possibly even danger) when it happens. He can't possibly be the one to start things.

However, he loves animals. When he sees them, he immediately verbally greets them. He's never been taught to fear animals. He's about 7 and completely intuitively, he basically does exactly what one would do when talking to a woman initially, only with a cat or a dog. He "opens" with something along the lines of "Hello, Mr. Kitty!" makes an observation "You look fun" or "You have a cool tail".

It's completely natural to do this. We are internally wired to greet each other. It's actually highly unnatural to walk right past someone without even acknowledging them. There was a time when I wondered why the newbie mission was what it was. Just say hi to 10 people(not even women you'd normally approach). But I get why now. Sometimes, you just need to start deprogramming the bad things you've been taught.

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RSDTyler