May sound pedantic, maybe a generational conversation blocker more than a spur, since when has I'm been a single word?

Picking up on the quality of how this phrase will sponsor further conversation, perhaps the approach has to be to listen to initial ways the person talking with phrases - so the prefaces to I'm curious can change and the manner in saying and intimating I'm curious / I am curious / curiously, we were..../this is curious, what do you......