Talking with strangers can be a valuable experience, but few take the initiative to do it regularly.
When I get on a local bus, few people are talking with each other unless they already know each other. It’s easy to tell. Passengers don’t sit next to strangers unless the bus is fairly full. That’s my opportunity. If I’m sitting next to someone, often I’ll try to strike up a conversation. If it’s a bus leaving the university, I’ll ask if they’re a student, what they’re studying, what year they’re in, what they want to do when they finish, whatever comes up.
I’ve been doing this for years, but only occasionally. In the past couple of months, I’ve been doing it more often because of reading Once Upon a Stranger by Gillian Sandstrom. Her book is an engaging account of the benefits of having conversations with strangers. It is also packed with easy-to-follow summaries of research findings, including her own.
Who is a stranger? Basically, anyone you don’t already know, and they’re around you in many places, while shopping and travelling. At least that’s the case in cities, where there are large numbers of people you encounter briefly and then never again.
Sandstrom’s message is that talking to strangers can make your life better, but most people are afraid to initiate conversations. She encourages you to go ahead and try doing it, knowing that practice will make you better at it.
Strangely, though, most people resist talking with strangers, persisting in false beliefs. Study after study shows that fears are unjustified. People think strangers won’t welcome their efforts, but actually most of them do. People are afraid of messing it up, not knowing what to say or fearing they will cause offence, but these sorts of things hardly ever happen.
Then there are the benefits of talking with strangers, including learning new things, having your life changed for the better — Sandstrom gives several personal examples — becoming happier and becoming kinder. It almost sounds like a near-guaranteed proposition. If only people knew how good it can be, maybe they would start trying. That’s Sandstrom’s hope.
Sandstrom says one thing that holds her back is a voice in her head, a voice of negativity, that says she’ll make a fool of herself, others won’t like her or she won’t be able to think of anything to say. She calls the voice Sid, and suggests ways to silence or ignore Sid. This resonates with the experiences of writers, many of whom are plagued by a negative voice in their heads saying they’re no good, will never be published, and why not wait until tomorrow to write. Self-doubt seems widespread and often manifests in negative self-talk. For writers, it’s useful to think of the voice as a duck. There is a notepad to encourage resistance. It says, “Shut the duck up!”
Obstacles
In recent years, there seem to be more obstacles to initiating conversations. The biggest deterrents are headphones, earbuds and phones. It seems rude to interrupt who seems to be attentively listening to something or other. The ubiquitous phones are so addictive that people’s eyes seem glued to them, and maybe they have lost some of their face-to-face skills.
The challenge is to interrupt, to start a conversation anyway, knowing that both you and the stranger will benefit from it. Not always easy.
The most promising opportunities are when it’s just you and one other person waiting for something. At a bus stop, if it’s just me and one other waiting, I might ask which bus they’re waiting for or where they’re going, or comment about the weather.
Getting on a Wollongong bus
I remember one time I was walking from the railway station to the university, which takes about 15 minutes, and looked for a conversation partner along the way. A woman I met turned out to be a perfect interviewee for one of my research students. Sandstrom has many stories like this.
The main text of Sandstrom’s book is about her personal experiences and relevant research. It’s all readable. I can’t say how persuasive she is, because I was already persuaded, but her encouragement helped me up my efforts. She tells about things she’s learned from strangers and about some interactions that changed her life. One led to her marriage.
Gillian Sandstrom
Then, in appendices, she provides lots of practical information, such as what topics to introduce and how to continue after an initial exchange. She lists things you can do to make it easier for others to initiate conversations with you, including looking up when you’re out and about — when your head is down, others won’t interact — putting away your phone, not using headphones, not being in a rush, and wearing something striking that strangers will want to comment on.
When my parents lived in Tucson, Arizona, they would go for walks in suburban back streets, where there wasn’t much traffic. They would wave to every car that went by, and most of the drivers waved back. Sandstrom tells of research that even just a smile or glance can make others feel recognised and improve their mood, so waving to drivers is a way to make the world a little bit nicer. But this would be unusual in many places.
Cultural factors influence interactions with strangers. My friend Marina says that in her experience Brazilians are warm and outgoing and often make connections in queues at banks and supermarkets, but at the same time are wary because strangers can take advantage of them: a stranger’s friendliness can be the prelude to a scam.
Needless to say, I fully support Sandstrom’s plea to talk more with strangers. Her arguments and evidence are solid, and accord with my experience. How many readers will be inspired to take more initiative and build connections remains to be seen.
Sandstrom has no political agenda, but it’s easy to see that talking with strangers is a method of building community, of countering the forces that atomise society by encouraging individualism and self-centredness. If community-building is important to you, why not join in?
Brian Martin
bmartin@uow.edu.au
Thanks to Paula Arvela, Marina Granato, Julia LeMonde and Erin Twyford for useful comments.