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The vital art of talking to strangers (2021)

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Re: The vital art of talking to strangers (2021)

#121

Post by jwells89 »

Slow_Hand wrote: post #90
hackermatic wrote: post #17

The cultural differences about this are vast even in the United States. In the part of the Midwest where I grew up, strangers would come up and offer compliments about your outfit or car, make friendly small talk in the grocery store checkout line, or at least offer a quiet "hi" and smile when passing on the sidewalk. In the Pacific Northwest, we try not to even look at each other when passing, although people are fr…

This matches my personal experience. When I moved from Boston to Austin it was like night and day how different interactions with strangers were. Strangers in Boston kept to themselves and when you approached them it would have an air of “what are you trying to sell me?” in which their feet were already pointed away from you and they were prepared to keep walking. On the other hand, Texans are far more open to speak…

Density is a factor in this for sure, but I think weather/climate is also a factor. It gets cold in Boston in the winter for example, and in the PNW it's raining and on the cooler side for a good chunk of the year. In those climates people tend to want to get back indoors quickly and not loiter around, and that carries over even into the warmer months.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers (2021)

#122

Post by ambicapter »

catiopatio wrote: post #120
teekert wrote: post #51

“Children are taught never to speak to unknown grown-ups, especially those regarded by their parents as untrustworthy.” Not my kids, they talk to anyone. When they ask me a question about someone I encourage them to ask the person. When the want something I encourage them to ask (respectfully). They always, always get nice responses and I get friendly conversations afterwards. Think of yourself, how would you react?…

I would react politely to your children and, if further engaged by you, continue to converse with you politely. I would also genuinely, deeply, and silently dislike every second of the forced interaction. 99.999% of people might react the same, but that doesn’t mean we all feel the same.

Sounds like you need to work on your disengagement skills.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers (2021)

#123

Post by doubleg72 »

Klonoar wrote: post #73
dieselgate wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m inthe PNW and feel this is largely situation dependent. Was camping in Oregon last weekend and was surprised by how many different groups of campers were conversing at length with one another. When on/around my boat at the marina it’s common for folks to chat openly. In my neighborhood it’s very much the opposite and there’s little/no eye contact and chatter.

The replies to this comment illustrated it well, but yes, I would agree in general. It just gets tiring when you have to go do something to have a simple conversation. i.e, random convos in bars here are not a thing - or at least not comparable to e.g the east coast of America.

Don’t people go to bars to socialize??

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers (2021)

#124

Post by xchip »

JustAPerson wrote: post #85

I’ve spent years of therapy trying to overcome my fear of talking to strangers. Mostly it just feels inappropriate and unwanted; like I would be intruding on people. I can talk to strangers when there’s an appropriate social context (e.g. clerks / service people). But lacking the right context, it feels deeply uncomfortable. Has anyone overcome this problem? Where would you go to interact with strangers–importantly w…

I also feel awkward when a situation is new to me, keep repeating talking to strangers until you became used to it, that is how it works, that is how we make horses be calm and not freak out when they see plastic bags.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers (2021)

#125

Post by sweettea »

doubleg72 wrote: post #123
Klonoar wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The replies to this comment illustrated it well, but yes, I would agree in general. It just gets tiring when you have to go do something to have a simple conversation. i.e, random convos in bars here are not a thing - or at least not comparable to e.g the east coast of America.

Don’t people go to bars to socialize??

I have never experienced talking to a stranger at a bar - one goes with ones friends, and gets to know them better, but nobody known to nobody ever gets added to the conversation.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers (2021)

#126

Post by dchftcs »

ambicapter wrote: post #122
catiopatio wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would react politely to your children and, if further engaged by you, continue to converse with you politely. I would also genuinely, deeply, and silently dislike every second of the forced interaction. 99.999% of people might react the same, but that doesn’t mean we all feel the same.

Sounds like you need to work on your disengagement skills.

Disengagement works because not everyone out there is trying to talk to everyone. If you change cultural norms such that every child should talk to strangers a lot, it'll be tiring to have to do this "disengagement" 10 times a day.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers (2021)

#127

Post by 0xParlay »

bradley13 wrote: post #16

Not so long ago, I was having my first cup of coffee in a hotel restaurant. A woman sat down directly across from me and started off with how nice it was to have someone to chat with. Um. No. I was polite, but...no. I had no interest in learning who she was, why she was there, or what she did for a living. I heard all of that anyway. Look, I haven't put on my social facade yet and I am not interested. You're next to…

Sounds like she really needed someone to talk to. Might've helped keep her sanity. Thanks for being polite

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers (2021)

#128

Post by ramblenode »

VancouverMan wrote: post #105
Slow_Hand wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This matches my personal experience. When I moved from Boston to Austin it was like night and day how different interactions with strangers were. Strangers in Boston kept to themselves and when you approached them it would have an air of “what are you trying to sell me?” in which their feet were already pointed away from you and they were prepared to keep walking. On the other hand, Texans are far more open to speak…

Density is attractive to individuals who want to exploit as many other people as efficiently as possible. For example, in the downtown areas of Canada's densest cities, before smartphones, about 90-95% of random strangers coming up to me wanted money, either as beggars or seeking donations for some "charity". The other 5-10% would generally be asking for directions or the time. Even those interactions could have alwa…

> Density is attractive to individuals who want to exploit as many other people as efficiently as possible.

> For example, in the downtown areas of Canada's densest cities, before smartphones, about 90-95% of random strangers coming up to me wanted money either as beggars or seeking donations for some "charity". The other 5-10% would generally be asking for directions or the time.

That's selection bias.

You are interacting with the most desperate, entrepreneurial, and lost people, who are not a random and unbiased sample of the whole city.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers (2021)

#129

Post by epiccoleman »

thom wrote: post #8

I sometimes overcompensate for anxiety by being chatty and over familiar, but since I’ve had kids it’s also behaviour that I think is important for them to see. It makes my day when I have a positive interaction with a stranger but I also want my kids to know people are mostly kind and interesting and it’s okay to feel confident around them.

I grew up in a small town, with a family who was at church every single Sunday (and if there was a fish fry or social, we were there too).

My dad grew up in the same town, with a similar family situation. And as a result, he knew everyone. He used to drive me absolutely crazy whenever we'd go out because no matter where we went, he'd bump into someone and wind up in a 30 minute chat.

But as an adult I realized it was hugely important for my own social skills to witness and get pulled into those conversations.

I'm an introvert (I take after my mother in this respect), but I think I'm a pretty decent small talker, and since my own kids have started getting bigger I've been trying to make an effort to overcome the friction I feel to opening up to new people so that I can demonstrate some of what my dad did. For the most part I actually enjoy talking with people, but I do really have to push myself to get started with conversations sometimes.

My wife and I actually just forced ourselves to attend a birthday party for a neighbor that we'd been invited to tonight. Our kids landed there ahead of us so our hands were forced. We ended up having a great time and got such a warm greeting from the host (sometimes it can really surprise me how happy a person is to see us, haha).

tl;dr: It's definitely worth the effort to push past the friction sometimes.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers (2021)

#130

Post by tysam_and »

I'm autistic, and it's taken me a long time to learn how to start. It's been worth it.

Today, a woman and I were both looking at the same display in Hobby Lobby, both clearly looking for something.

When she moved over, I used something I've learned recently, which is, "Oh, sorry to be in your way -- I'm just looking for something to build a backpack with." Which is not entirely true, since it's a nopack -- a system which uses everyday components from my backpacking experience to make a carrying system, but close enough. A strange lie that is expected in simplification.

I've learned that this mode of phrasing means "Hi, I'm interested in maybe the same thing as you are, and would like to make potential conversation about [topic mentioned] or [thing we are mutually looking at] (or, as I later realized just now, [topic behind why you're looking at the thing you're looking at]).

She took me up on all three of those things, and we talked about jean zippers, backpacking, safety on the Appalachian Trail (I'm a trans nonbinary woman/gal, I don't think she noticed though from how the conversation went. Places like Hobby Lobby and Chick Fil A can have a different vibe to them when not passing well), and a few other miscellaneous things. It was very nice, we talked maybe 5-10 minutes or so before going on our separate ways.

My day felt more full, I felt more happy, and less isolated.

I wish there was a dictionary, or some kind of book/guide that explained these kinds of things. Somebody on the Appalachian Trail this year taught me how to indirectly ask for things (i.e. "Do you know a good way to get to [X town]?" while wearing a backpack sorta means "Hey, can you give me a ride please?". This was a shocking revelation to me, and made life much easier).

Having a clear, simple guide would have saved me much grief. These things aren't complicated, they're just too complex and too hidden for most of us to sort out through all of the information overwhelm mire.

I'm happy to talk more about this topic, I could really talk about it for a long time <3 :'))))

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