Groups, and how I can't talk in them.

I'm not very good at meeting people for the first time.
I'm not so bad one on one. If everytime I met someone new we were immediately forced to sit together in a room for perhaps half an hour, I'm sure I could do a good job of making them like me.

Over the years I've built up a strong repetoire of comic observations, mainly about myself, that do very nicely for first meeting someone.
I have standard phrases I always use. They usually make people laugh. Not properly, just mildly.

I can't tell you them. I mean, you could rent them from me for a reasonable fee, but I can't give away good material on a free-to-access blog (perhaps I could implement a Rupert Murdoch-esque pay wall...)

Those phrases don't really work in a group environment.
For a start the chances are that some of the people have heard them before. And if there is one thing I know about comedy, it's that hearing it again is merely an awkward experience. You are forced to politely laugh at something that you are not finding remotely funny, but are aware you found it funny before.

I don't know what to do in groups. I stay quiet. And the problem with staying quiet is that you have then type-cast yourself as "the quiet one". And you can't really escape it. I can't really say to the group:
"If you all individually give me a chance to talk to you one-to-one I firmly believe we'll become close friends, or perhaps lovers *winking to the ladies*"

I have neither the confidence, nor the wish to be labeled a wierdo.