A few days ago I was walking back home when I noticed a girl sitting on a park bench by herself. She was smoking a cigarette and looking at her phone. I slowly approached her, with no IOIs:

-Hey, are you waiting for someone or just chilling?

(she gives me a surprised look, something like 0.0)

-No, I'm not waiting for anyone.

-That's great. Are you from here, from XYZville?

-No, I'm not.

... (me expecting her to tell me where's she from)

-So, where are you from?

-ZYXville.

-Oh, I used to go the university there. Are you here for the first time? (at this point I'm slowly sitting next to her)

-No.

... (me expecting her to tell me how many times she's been here)

-So... how many times have you been here?

-Three.

...

What I've heard from her is that she's been here for 7 days so far and not a single guy approached her. This is nothing unusual, as I live in a small European country where people don't tend to interact with strangers, and approaches are almost always reserved for nightclubs (where their bitch shields are on and are surrounded with 4 or 5 girlfriends). Anyway, she was a tourist and she came here by herself (here it's a big taboo for a girl to travel by herself) and told me she would gladly travel with her friend if they were not busy. I asked her for some places in town and if she visited them yet, and she said no. I told her that tomorrow we can go and visit them, and she agreed, I got her phone number but she ended up flaking.

But what pisses me off that the entire thing was painful and it was difficult to start any kind of meaningful conversation. There were always short answers from her and it was mostly me who did the speaking, otherwise the conversation would just die. I though that I'll ask her for her number after 4 or 5 minutes, but I had to spend some more time as she definitely didn't look comfortable. This happens all the time with chicks from my country. Last summer I approached an Italian girl and we had an awesome conversation, but she was a minor and with her parents. If a girl is sitting and looking in the distance, I usually ask "What are you daydreaming about?", but if she looks busy or waiting for someone, I use the line I used in this approach. I have to make sure that her boyfriend/husband is not 30 feet away standing in a line for popcorn, so I can eject immediately. This happens more often than not.

I was wondering what do you guys do in order to make a girl more interested once you approach her? Every time I approach, the conversation just dies and I'm having extreme difficulties to make her speak up. And if a conversation dies and remains dead for a while, they say something like "Okay, I have to go now, it was nice talking to you." and eject.

Thanks.