Talk to Strangers!

Thinking about: Other people

When I was a child, my mother told me not to talk to strangers, so I didn’t. As an adult, my ego prevented me from striking up conversations with people I didn’t know: What if they snubbed me? In my sixties, I realized that my reluctance to talk to strangers was fading, and now that I am in my seventies, I find myself striking up conversations with them whenever circumstances allow.

I live in a community in which people often go for walks. When I am out walking, I look for conversational targets. If they are wearing earbuds or looking at their cellphone, it is a sign that they aren’t interested in talking—likewise if they avoid eye contact. But if they do make eye contact, I make a point of acknowledging their existence by saying “hi.” That’s minimal contact, I know, but it is human contact.

Elevators are a more challenging environment. Even though people are engaged in conversation on entering one, they typically go quiet once the door is closed. Also, any conversation started in an elevator will likely come to an abrupt halt when one of you reaches their floor. An airplane ride in which you are seated next to a stranger could be a good place to have a conversation, but you must proceed with care. There is a risk, in particular, of subsequently having to spend several hours listening to them complain.

Uber rides are a great place to converse with a stranger—namely, the Uber driver. I described one such encounter in an earlier post. Another opportunity is when I am standing in a slow-moving line. Under those circumstances, it is easy to break the ice simply by commenting on the line we are in. After that, I can follow the conversation wherever it leads, and the destinations can be surprising.

In one recent conversation with a stranger, I was waiting outside the department store fitting room in which my wife was trying on clothes. Along came the employee whose job it was to restock items shoppers had tried on. When she passed by, I commented, “When it comes to clothing, women sure have a lot of choices.” She was at first startled to hear me talk, but when she realized that I was talking to her and was a harmless husband-in-waiting, she delivered a delightful impromptu lecture on just how many choices women have. She closed with, “And don’t even get me started on women’s shoes,” to which I responded, “What about them?” I came away thoroughly enlightened—and glad to be a man. In terms of clothing and shoes, it’s so much easier!

Shortly thereafter, my wife and I were standing in the checkout line to pay for the dress she had chosen. I struck up a conversation with the woman standing behind us, and before we had reached the cashier, she had told us about the time her parents had been arrested for skinny dipping. Seriously!

It turns out that most people, most of the time, are delighted to talk to a stranger—as long as it is the stranger who starts the conversation. They come across as starved for conversation—more precisely, for conversation in which the other person is actually listening.

Whenever you talk to another person, you are having a conversation, but in many such cases, the person you are talking to isn’t really listening. They are instead biding their time until you stop talking, so they can tell you what they think. One sign that they aren’t engaged in “deep listening” is that they keep glancing at their cellphone. A more telling sign is that they cut you off mid-sentence, to tell you what they think. When people sense that their conversational partner is engaged in deep listening, they open up. You sense that they aren’t used to having such conversations with their friends and colleagues—indeed, not even with their significant others.

When I start a conversation with a stranger, I go into deep-listening mode. This means not only paying careful attention to what they are saying but keeping my mouth shut, except to ask questions of clarification. Such conversations end up being lopsided affairs, with the stranger doing most of the talking. I am perfectly okay with this outcome, since my objective in starting the conversation is not to tell them about myself but to find out about them. They usually have great stories to tell. Also, talking to them gives me the opportunity to see the world from their perspective and thereby gain insights into the human condition.

When one of these conversations is over, I estimate its “talk ratio”: I compare how much talking they did to how much I did. In a 50–50 conversation, we will have talked the same amount. In a 90–10 conversation, they will have done 90 percent of the talking and I will have done only 10. For me, the sweet spot in a conversation with strangers is between 90–10 and 80–20.

My encounters with strangers have left me a bit puzzled. I very much enjoy these conversations, and research by social psychologist Nicholas Epley indicates that I am not alone. (This is a very accessible 25-minute podcast, but if you are short on time, jump to 14:56 in.) The strangers I talk to also seem to enjoy our conversations, in part because it supplies them with “vitamin P”—which I have described in an earlier post—but even more significantly because they appreciate having someone really listen to what they have to say.

Given that this is the case, why don’t people routinely strike up conversations with strangers? My guess is that it is because they mistakenly believe that other people won’t be receptive, which is a shame. Because of this belief, people deprive themselves of conversations that they would enjoy and that the people they talk to would enjoy as well. Furthermore, society benefits from people talking to strangers. The world, after all, would be a better place if people got to know each other, but for this to happen, people have to talk to strangers.

I will end this post with an assignment for my readers. Think about your conversations. What is your “talk ratio” in a typical conversation? In your conversations, do you play the role of a deep listener, do you simply let your mind idle until it’s your turn to talk, and worst of all, do you cut other people off? Do you ever strike up conversations with strangers, and if not, why not?

After doing this self-assessment, I want you to undertake an experiment: When circumstances allow, try to strike up a conversation with a stranger. Feel free to share the outcome of your experiment in the comments.

Need more food for thought? Click here for my past essays, listed by title.