Bad Ice Breaker

I just moved out of my dorm and into a new dorm for the summer. Penn undergraduates who take summer classes are all housed in one of the twelve college houses and it just so happens not to be the one that I live in September through May. No worries, though. This one rocks. Instead of my quaint, homely dorm room, I have a modern one-bedroom apartment in a high rise. Anyway, new dorm and new school term means new house staff to meet. Over the past couple of days I have become acquainted with 13 new, experienced residential advisors and no orientation would be complete without a couple of trust falls and icebreakers. I should say that I, for one, LOVE icebreakers. I'm cheesy like cheddar on swiss so any day when I can play two truths/one lie, or human bingo is a good day in my book.

This particular icebreaker entailed picking a card from this deck of conversation starters. All of my peers had really cool questions like, "what was your favorite meal growing up?" or "what was the last thing you downloaded?" I got, "When was the last time you cried?" WHAT?!?! This is not a conversation starter as much as a conversation stopper. Luckily I was able to make a joke out of the question and we've been laughing about it ever since. In fact, I think I'm going to ask that on my next first date just because after this experience I find it so funny. But in all seriousness, what conversation expert thought this would be a good way to start a conversation?