Okay, okay… serious response:

Take an interest in the other person. Ask about them, and talk very little about yourself. People like to talk about themselves, so give the other person the opportunity. Ask open-ended questions. Ask about things that are important to you. Show that you're interested, engage in word and in body language, ask followup questions.

If you've never spoken before, keep it casual, but don't ask forgettable questions. For instance, rather than ask, "What do you do for a living?" perhaps ask, "What do you enjoy about the work you do?" Instead of asking what sort of neighborhood / housing they live in, ask what they like about their neighborhood and/or neighbors. Perhaps rather than just asking about family and siblings, ask what they remember most fondly from their childhood.

If you've already gotten a lot of the cursory getting-to-know-you stuff out of the way, you might want to ask some deeper questions. These topics, though, depend on the individual and what you find interesting and important. A few things off the top of my head include,

• What do you value in your closest friends?
• Do you want kids (or more kids) someday?
• Where do you want to live, if you had your preference? (E.g., stay local or move away?)
• When you think about a 'forever' sort of love, what do you picture and what sort of person captures your heart?

I'm by no means an expert. I'm friendly, but a little awkward — yet people often confide in me. Take my suggestions with a grain of salt and figure out what works best for you.

Best of luck!
/2¢

@resserts I agree with your serious suggestions. I try to hang back most of the time in a first in person meeting. It's better if you can at least have a video chat or phone call before the big step of the first in person meeting, but some women are so cautious about their safety or feelings that they won't agree to either of those. If that's that case, you have to think long and hard about whether they might be trying to hide something from you or possibly that they are just very sensitive and afraid of sharing much about how they really look or sound. If you think they are hiding something or too guarded about themselves, then you may decide, as I probably will in the future, that they are either not worth the continued effort on my part or not really that interested in meeting me or possibly dating me.

If you do make it to the first in person meeting, I know that many or even most people don't like their jobs that much, and because I am not that materialistic or into status things like cars, clothes, or someone's resume or if they had a high status career, I simply ask what things they are passionate about in their life and what they would do if they won the lottery and could live anywhere, travel anywhere, or do whatever they wanted in the future. That will tell you a lot about who they really are, what matters to them, and what their hopes and dreams are. Always stay with positive stuff in how the the first meeting's conversation goes. I can't believe how some women choose to bring up or share negative stuff about other men in their past or about how bad some of their past experiences have been, whether in relationships or how they have interacted with others. Always a bad move to gripe about things in that first meeting.

@resserts thank you!

@TomMcGiverin thank you! I think changing the subject when women talk about their past relationships would be helpful. I have had very few in person first conversations.

@Benjamin123 I've tried that with women on first meetings. Some of them get the hint and move on from it and some don't. I'm at the point that any woman who's that lacking in self awareness, I am going to move away and on from, because that's a red flag that they aren't emotionally open, healed and ready for a relationship yet. Nobody with self awareness and good emotional health would bring up that kind of stuff in a first in person meeting.

Forgot to ask the most obvious and crucial one, " What is your weight?" Always a good go-to ?, at least if you want to get punched.....

I can only speak for myself, ressert, but most of us here enjoy hearing from a professional smart-ass... You certainly qualify. Looks like the OP was looking for something else from the commenters. There's always a perfect straight man for the part.

@TomMcGiverin I do what I can to play to the crowd, but can't please everyone it seems.

@resserts You still succeeded plenty in my book...