The power of talking to strangers
Brief connections help broaden our perception of others
Balancing Act I walked around my neighborhood last week with Elton John.
It was Halloween, so Elton was actually my friends’ 3-year-old son, dressed spectacularly — white suit, bedazzled shoulders, pink shades — and prepared to melt hearts as he collected Kit Kats.
Candy distributors and fellow trick-or-treaters stopped to marvel at his cuteness, which got his dad and me talking about the beauty of rituals that get you out of your house and into the company of strangers: exchanging pleasantries, laughing with your neighbors.
What if we didn’t wait for rituals?
In a fascinating new book called “When Strangers Meet: How People You Don’t Know Can Transform You” (Simon & Schuster), Kio Stark makes the case for striking up conversations and exchanging pleasantries with perfect strangers year-round — no candy required.
Stark is a novelist and instructor. She created a class at New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program to teach programmers and app designers how the strangers they hope to connect behave in real life.
For years, she’s made a point of talking to strangers — on the subway, at the butcher shop, walking through parks — and it has profoundly shaped her view of the world for the better, she maintains.
“Talking to people I’ve never met is my adventure,” she writes. “It’s my joy, my rebellion, my liberation. It is how I live.”
Even fleeting, momentary connections can broaden our understanding and perception of other people, Stark contends, which builds empathy and makes us feel less hopeless/anxious/ pessimistic about the world around us.
Sounds pretty good right about now.
“If you feel connected to someone, even in a fleeting way, you’re more likely to vicariously experience their emotional and physiological states and to have empathy for them,” she writes. “Our capacity for empathizing with people we don’t know, both in the abstract and with individual strangers, is not only based on our own personalities and beliefs. It’s situational and variable and can be deeply influenced by our state of mind, by feelings of connectedness or the lack of them.”
She’s careful to point out that talking to strangers is different from talking at them.
“I am talking about open, respectful, genuine interaction,” she writes. “None of what you’ll read here is to sanction or suggest that unwanted, hostile contact — street harassment, in other words — contributes to our sense of belonging and humanity.”
Catcalling won’t improve anyone’s outlook. But a sincere “How’s your day going?” might.
Stark outlines expeditions for readers to attempt. In “Say Hello to Everyone,” she urges us to define a territory with a reasonably dense collection of pedestrians and commit to greeting each and every person we pass.
“Try to look them in the eye, but don’t worry if they don’t hear you or ignore you,” she writes. “You’re just getting warmed up.”
After the initial shock of talking to strangers wears off, she urges us to take it a step further. Compliment someone’s cute pet. Make small talk about the weather.
“These acts of noticing pierce the veil of anonymity and create momentary social space,” she writes.
The book focuses largely on what we can gain from this practice, but I like to think about what it might offer to others as well, particularly people who are used to feeling invisible.
The Washington Post recently ran a beautiful story about a janitor at Georgetown University, Oneil Batchelor, who was used to toiling away unnoticed by students and staff until Febin Bellamy, a business student and fellow immigrant, struck up a conversation with him one day.
“Everybody’s in their own world,” Bellamy told the Post. “A lot of students have good hearts and were raised right. It’s just not always easy for them to get to know people around them.”
His friendship with Batchelor was just the beginning. The child of Indian immigrants who also toiled away unnoticed, Bellamy made it his mission to bring attention to dozens of other workers on campus, workers who largely escape the attention of the people who benefit most from their hard work. Bellamy started a Facebook page called Unsung Heroes and filled it with short profiles of workers around campus.
“The stories got shared. And liked. And loved,” the Post piece reads.
“I walk through campus now, and people are waving at me, saying hi all the time,” Batchelor said.
Stark’s book is an invitation to follow that lead. It’s a nudge away from isolation and insularity — tempting conditions these days — and toward openheartedness.
I’m going to give it a try without the crutch of costumes and candy.
Join me?