I'm brand new to this, only joined the forum recently, and have no knowledge whatsoever. To be honest, I'm trying to get my head around this forum as it seems as first glance to assume some prior knowledge. I didn't know what HB stood for for ages. A lot of the terms like IOI were foreign to me too. Is there a absolute beginners guide people recommend?

Anyway, I thought I'd recap a few recent situations because they sum up a lot of what I'm struggling with.

I'm a shy guy but over the last 4 days or so, I've been forcing myself to try and start conversations with girls to see what I can learn.

1. I was in my local Tesco, in the coffee/tea aisle, and this HB8 was there, looking confused. I was standing next to her, looking up and smiled. She smiled back and I said "there's just too much choice, isn't there", teasing her for being confused as to which coffee to buy. She said "yeah" and laughed, but then put her head down and wandered off. I didn't get a chance to really say anything else, but I guess was useful, as I had nothing planned! I was hoping she was going to say a little bit more so I can bounce off it.
   
2. Again in Tesco, I was buying my mum something so was down the female bodywash/shampoo aisle, and a HB8 stopped ahead. I stood next to her, and then turned to her and said "hey, how are you....can I ask you something?". She said "umm, I guess" in a not very interested voice. I asked her opinion on which thing to get as a present (I didn't mention my mum, as that sounded a bit childish and I guess I wanted her to think I had female people to buy for, but don't really know why I thought that, as if she thought I had a girlfriend, I was hardly going to get her number. Just some flawed logic). Anyway, she just said "I don't know really, sorry" and then shuffled off. All felt a bit awkward, and she spoke like I did when I'm just trying to get rid of annoying people stopping you in the street asking for money.
   
3. I was walking home around 11.45pm on a Friday night and passed a pub kicking out. These two girls (HB7 and 8) came out right by me. One was hiccuping, so I tried cheekily saying to the other one "You hold her ankles and I'll tip her upside down". They laughed but just carried on walking off, so didn't say anything back. Anyway, I walked down a side street to go home, and after 5 minutes, came out onto this main road, and somehow these girls were there (they must have walked down another road). I tried again and opened with "Hey, you two stalking me or something?" with a laugh, and they looked at each other and said "Err....no" and laughed together and walked past. Didn't stop or say much back. Kind of felt like two hot girls laughing at an annoying geeky guy.

As I know no techniques or anything, it's not a surprise I'm doing terribly, but my problem does seem to be openings, and how to start a conversation. I struggle to think of things to say, and even if they would have responded with something a bit better, I didn't really have anything in mind to carry on with. I guess I'm hoping all the time for their response to bounce off.

Can anyone recommend any good threads on here about conversational techniques and openers?