How to have a better first video call with someone you have never met

Nearly everything that goes wrong on a first video call goes wrong before either person speaks. The light is behind you, so you are a silhouette. The laptop is on your knees, so she is looking up your nose. The television is on behind you and she is watching it instead of you. None of that is a personality problem, and all of it is fixable in about ninety seconds.

What follows is the practical version. It applies to any live video conversation with someone you have not met, whether that is a 1v1 video chat on GoMeet1v1 or a call with a friend of a friend.

Fix these four things before you connect

Put the light in front of you, not behind

A window behind you turns you into a shape. A window in front of you, even a small one, does more for how you look on camera than any app filter. At night, the trick is the same with a lamp: move it so it is on the same side as your camera, and take anything bright out of the frame behind you. If the only light in the room is the screen itself, your face will go blue and flat every time the picture changes.

Get the camera to eye level

Phones held at chest height and laptops on laps produce the same unflattering angle, and both make you look like you are leaning away from the conversation. Prop the phone against something so the lens sits at eye height. On a laptop, a couple of books under it costs nothing. Then leave about a hand's width of space above your head in the frame — most people sit too close, and a face filling the whole screen is more intense than anyone means it to be.

Look at what is behind you, properly

Not for tidiness. For what it gives away. Post with your address on it, a parcel with your name, a laptop screen with your email open, a window with a recognisable building in it: these are the details that make it possible to find out who you are and where you live. A plain wall is the safest background there is, and it is also the one that keeps the attention on your face.

Deal with sound before you have to apologise for it

Echo is the single most common reason calls end early, and it is almost always caused by speakers rather than a bad connection. Headphones remove it completely. If you do not have any, turn the volume down until the echo stops. Close the window if there is traffic. Put the phone on a surface rather than holding it, because hand noise on a phone body is much louder to the other person than it is to you.

The first ninety seconds

Both of you are managing the same fear, which is that the other person is about to decide something. Knowing that is most of the cure. The person on the other side is not evaluating you from a position of comfort; she is doing exactly what you are doing.

Two things help more than anything clever. The first is to say hello and then say something, rather than saying hello and waiting. "Hi" followed by silence puts the entire job of starting the conversation on her, and it is the most common way a promising call dies in the first fifteen seconds. The second is to give her something to react to. A remark about where you are, the weather where she is, something visible behind either of you: any of these are easier to answer than "how are you?", which has no real answer and never has.

Use her name early if you can see it. It sounds like a small thing. It is the difference between a conversation and an audition.

When it goes quiet

Silence in a video call feels roughly three times longer to the person who last spoke. Almost every awkward pause is one person waiting politely and the other person panicking. If you can hold a two-second gap without filling it, you will find that she often fills it — and what people say when they fill a silence is usually more interesting than what they say when they are answering a question.

When you do need to restart it, ask about why rather than what. "What do you do?" produces a job title and a dead end. "What did you want to be before this?" produces a story. There is a longer list of these in 38 questions worth asking on a video call, including the ones that survive a language gap.

Four things that end a first call early

• Interviewing. Question, answer, next question. It is a common nervous habit and it feels to the other person like being processed. Follow one answer for a minute before moving on.
• Talking about the platform. How long you have been on it, how many people you have talked to, what you think of it. It moves the conversation away from the two of you and it makes everyone self-conscious.
• Pushing for another app in the first two minutes. Even with good intentions, this is exactly what a scammer does, so it reads badly no matter who is asking. It is also the point at which reporting and blocking stop protecting either of you.
• Turning your camera off "just for a second". On a video call that is not a small thing. If you need to, say why, and turn it back on.

If you do not share a fluent language

This is far more common than people expect, and it is much less of a problem than it sounds. The thing that breaks these conversations is not vocabulary — it is speed, idioms, and the habit of filling gaps with more words. There is a whole article on how to handle it, with twelve phrases that carry a call: how to video chat with someone who does not speak your language.

And if it is simply not working

Then end it. Not every conversation is going to go anywhere, and the pair of you sitting through twenty more minutes out of politeness does not make either of you feel better. "It was nice to meet you, I'm going to head off" is a complete and perfectly kind exit. You do not owe an explanation, and neither does she — if she leaves first, it is very rarely about you.

Before your first call it is also worth reading the Safety Center, which covers what never to share and what to do if someone crosses a line.