There are plenty of different ways to open. "Hey how's it going" is a direct opener. "Do you know where the washroom is?" is an indirect opener. You could do a lot worse than those, but you could also do a lot better. Direct is "you look like a cutie, so I had to come over an introduce myself." Indirect is "did you see that? the most hilarious thing just happened..."

You can literally just change the subject after that. If you use a more daring/interesting opener, you can get away with almost anything. After that moment of excitement/laughter/intrigue in your opening, you say "Hey, I'm vcwriter. BTW, the craziest thing happened to me today." Or "you look like the creative type. Do you do art or music or something?"

But as you might imagine, it comes across as weird to just randomly change the subject after "hey how's it going."

It doesn't hurt to think ahead. Not that you should plan everything out robotically, but a lot of confidence comes from just feeling like you're prepared. You're a smart guy. You must have SOMETHING to say.