Don’t talk to strangers!
Who’s heard that before?
This is what all of us hear from our parents, teachers and our peers
when we are tiny.
And why?
According to Psychological Science,
children as young as seven
already evaluate trustworthiness in strangers as accurately as adults do.
But still, for a fear of the unknown,
we try to avoid all communication with strangers.
And I do have to commend us
because now, in the 21st century,
we have perfected the art of not talking with strangers
through our tech gadgets.
Today, when we walk down the streets,
on our phones, with AirPods in our ears,
we pass people on the street without even acknowledging their presence.
Because, why would we?
Are they going to introduce me to my soulmate?
Are they going to find me my next job?
Probably not.
So it seems that having conversations with strangers is a total waste of time.
And anyway, we are so busy.
Now, I want to convince you of the opposite,
that speaking with strangers and diving into the unknown
will improve your life tremendously,
both by giving you more opportunities and connecting you with your community.
Now, imagine it is 8:30 in the morning,
and you click the elevator door
on the eighth floor of your apartment building
to get to work.
You are coffee-in-hand, and you walk into the elevator,
and all of a sudden, the elevator stops.
On the seventh floor.
A lady walks in with her two dogs.
What do you do?
A. Comment on the dogs: "Oh, they’re so cute!"
B. Pull out your phone and pretend to do something of utmost importance.
or C. Stand awkwardly, sipping your coffee.
So just think to yourself, and be completely honest,
who would pick option A?
I see you friendly folks out there!
And B?
And here, the masters of acting!
And C?
Ah yes! There are my fellow awkward coffee sippers!
That used to be me until I was sipping a latte with my aunt one afternoon.
She told me the story of how she got her current job.
She was a financial advisor
and got an email one morning telling her she was dismissed.
That week, she sent six applications to different companies,
frantically trying to get a job.
Disillusioned, a month later,
she got on the elevator after her Planet Fitness workout session.
There were two men in the elevator,
and she began to fuss about the challenges of finding a job.
One of the men mentioned that his wife worked for a headhunter
specializing in the area she let him know she was interested in,
and gave her her number.
My aunt called the headhunter,
and within two weeks, she had a job she loved.
All from speaking with a stranger in an elevator, no less.
The average New York City elevator ride lasts 118 seconds.
That’s it.
That’s what it can take to spark a conversation
that leads to somewhere interesting and different, even life-changing.
Inspired by my aunt’s story,
I decided to turn an opportunity in the elevator that lasts 118 seconds
into an opportunity that lasts 8 hours.
I wanted to discover the stories of fellow MTA commuters
by speaking with them.
I got on the 6 subway train at 9 AM on 86th Street.
This was, naturally, pre-COVID-19.
And I stayed on the green line, going up and down, until 5 PM.
A total of eight hours on the subway.
The entire time,
my goal was to speak with people I had never met
and would likely never meet again.
I asked people the same question to spark off a brief conversation:
"If this subway car could take you anywhere,
where would you go?"
At times, the responses were a mixture of a shrug of the shoulders
or pretending to get back to a text message or a game,
Subway Surfer included.
It was easy to understand the reticence to speak with a stranger.
I think several people thought I was plausibly mad
and distanced themselves from me as if I had the flu.
The people I did spark a connection with, though,
shared fascinating responses to my question.
I met a young man who answered me
by pointing up to an advertisement in the car about holidaying in Florida.
He wanted the train to take him to the white beaches and blue sea,
to share the spot with his boyfriend.
He wanted to get away from the hurly-burly.
A totally different perspective came from an older woman
who said she wanted the subway to take her to Mars.
For all of her life, she loved astronomy,
and today, with the rise of astrobiology,
which she explained to me means the study of life on planets,
she wanted to see for herself the possibility of life on Mars.
So there I was,
sitting with this person on the subway car
who was an Elon Musk-type visionary.
A third and final sample from my more than 200 interactions
was of a mother of five children who was expecting a sixth.
She told me she wanted the subway car to take her home,
exactly where she was headed.
She wanted to open the front door to her home
and feel the warm hugs of her children after a long day in a small cubicle.
She hoped there wouldn’t be a delay in the trains
for she was eager to prepare dinner for her children,
their favorite: pasta with tomato sauce.
I wanted to join her for that too!
The average New Yorker spends six hours commuting each week,
most of which takes place in the company of fellow commuters.
That's fertile ground to reach out to a stranger
and get some type of conversation going,
even if it's just to commend them on something or other.
In fact, it's in everyone’s best interest.
A 2014 study conducted by Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder,
published in the Association for Psychological Science,
found that commuters who spoke with their fellow subway or bus riders
had a more positive and equally productive commute.
Plus, we can always get to beating our Candy Crush score later.
I got enough captivating stories from my single question to write a book.
In class, I have found inspiration
for revisiting this childhood fear of speaking with strangers.
One of my teachers found her soulmate from one such interaction.
Check it out.
She was at the grocery store, in the ice cream aisle,
trying to reach the top row
to get the Ben & Jerry’s chocolate chip cookie dough flavor.
A man walks up to her and offers to reach it for her.
He was six foot two.
He tells her that it's his favorite flavor -
as is mine! -
and they start talking.
Cut the story short, my teacher and the tall man exchange phone numbers,
and they grab coffee the following week
since they discover they work near one another.
One thing leads to another,
and they are today celebrating 25 years married.
No doubt a thing of fortune,
and glad that their chance meeting didn't happen today, during COVID-19,
where keeping six feet apart may have meant lives never come together.
Let's hope we can restart our social lives soon!
When we do, what will we do differently?
How will we come out of our hibernation?
What will we improve on,
learning from the importance of social interactions from being starved of them?
Perhaps I can recommend a script to help you along, if valuable.
You can start an interaction by asking a fun question.
It's quirky, but you'd be surprised how much people want to share.
What will you ask?
A. What is your favorite color?
B. If you could make a YouTube video with one billion views,
what would it be about?
or C. If this subway car could take you anywhere, where would you go?
When this pandemic ends,
as we once again fill the subway cars and elevators and grocery stores,
let’s return and share the human energy
that we have missed during this awful pandemic.
Make that some type of resolution.
Goodbye to awkward coffee sips or pretense eyeing of your phone.
Reach out to a stranger instead.
Thank you.