I was pretty tickled by the research by Drs. Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder.  You may have read about their work in this BBC article. Even Malcom Gladwell is getting in on the action with his latest book, Talking to Strangers. He feels strongly we need to do more of this talking to strangers bit.  See the video above.

Here is the quick summary of the BBC article:

• We assume talking to strangers won’t feel as good as sitting in solitude.

• We underestimate how well we are liked by new people.

• Humans are social animals and get sick with too much isolation.

• Connecting with strangers is equally good for introverts and extroverts.

• Underestimating the positive impact of hello’s and kindness prevent of from reaching out.

Perhaps we have our understanding of personal growth all wrong.  
...well, not ALL wrong but perhaps we undervalue the power of stranger interactions.

Why? Strangers bring no baggage to the dialogue and more often, stimulate less of ours. When you go to your family’s house if you always felt second fiddle to your older sister there is something in the way of a pure interaction.  If you walk in and your parents are talking excitedly to your sister about her new job, the part of you that feels left out is doing some of the connecting. 
 
Imagine talking with a stranger.  
You have no history.  No beef. No hidden skeletons in the closet (except for your bias which is why Gladwell suggests we need to do it more - to eradicate them). You get to experience a part of you that might be next to impossible to experience except with a stranger.  A purer self. A self free from obligation.  

Some basic listening skills help us get the most out of stranger interaction.
We have to check our biases - positive and negative based on race, gender, identity, age, dress etc.  That is why I get excited about listening at Sidewalk Talk. I get to practice dropping those assumptions and how lovely for me because dropping them frees me up as a listener too to surprise and glee.  Not interrupting and allowing yourself to get into a flow of curiosity with “I want to know who you are” as your guiding principle.

Two strangers at the grocery store.
Last week a friend of mine was very sing-songy about a stranger interaction she had that day.  Her husband thought the whole exchange was crazy (it wasn’t). She was doing her weekly grocery shopping.  At the butcher counter, she heard a man ask the butcher for an “American” preparation of the salmon he just put in his basket.  The butcher was confused and too busy to take the time to understand what this man was asking. So my friend asked “Hi, maybe I can help.  What are you trying to do?”

The man explained he had been living in the US from India for three years and wanted to try to cook some fresh salmon.  They both lived in Seattle where fresh fish is abundant. This gentleman shared he had mostly kept close to other Indian friends in the area and mostly ate Indian food but had made a decision that day that he wanted to know more about the culture he was living in.  They had a nice exchange about his experiences so far and my friend shared her love of Indian cuisine. So they had a fun little exchange where they each agreed to share recipes with each other. She would email him her best salmon recipes if he would email her his best dishes from his hometown back in India.

My friend told me they both left the conversation with big grins on their faces.  And she was touched and amazed at the power of a stranger interaction. So simple. Free.  It reminds me of the pub culture in some ways. When I was a bartender in college I had several people come sit at my bar during the day, they did not order alcohol, but they did come to talk and connect with me and other strangers that happened to come in. 
 
I get the need for solitude and do not want to downplay its importance.
 But perhaps we confuse solitude for avoidance. I challenge you to experiment with asking one open-ended question to a stranger who seems open to receiving this kind of attention this week and see what happens. Specifically what assumptions do you make; about the effort involved? about who this person is? about how you will feel after compared to how you do feel?

Stranger things have happened.