Talk to Strangers

The first time I tried reading The Power of Strangers, the Benefits of Connecting in a Suspicious World by Joe Keohane, I was at Les Schwab waiting to get a tire leak fixed. Sitting next to me was an African American man who I guessed was in his 50s. His relaxed-fit clothes and knit hat gave him a friendly air. The television above our heads was blaring out news of bad air quality.

Forever the climate activist, I started a conversation linking smoke to wildfires and wildfires to the ills of fossil-fueled chaos. He shared with me that he had grown up in the Seattle area and had seen many changes, gentrification being a primary concern. We spoke until an employee interrupted us with the news that my car was ready. I picked up the book and said I had enjoyed speaking with him.

I shared climate-related knowledge, and I learned some of Seattle’s history.

Later that day, I started reading the book at home, with no opportunity to interrupt my reading by talking to a stranger.

The second time I had planned on reading the book was on the Empire Builder train from Seattle to Chicago. I boarded the train at the start of its journey in Seattle. The seat next to mine was empty when the train left the station, so I didn’t expect to have a seatmate through the night. However, shortly into the trip, at Edmond’s station, a woman asked to take a seat. I said, ‘of course!’

She appeared to be in her late 50s, was wearing a mask, and had the same high-pitched midwestern voice as a friend’s wife. She also said her bag was full of choral music, which I associate with the church, so I made a quick assessment that she was a church mousy type that would not be too interesting to converse with. My first impression was very wrong.

We talked through the hours the train travelled from Edmonds to Wenatchee. We talked about the following:

COVID and responsibility to the community

Connection to place

Religion

A Woman’s right to choose

Unvaccinated family members

Narcissists

Choral Music

Regenerative farming

Big Ag and Big Pharma

More about regenerative farming and taking care of the land. She told of her brother’s struggles with maintaining their family farm in Missouri. He was not using regenerative techniques and was not open to trying.

We shared thoughts, ideas, and concerns about the following:

Mothers and daughters

Helping the homeless

Inequality

As she prepared to go, she politely asked for my contact info, and I said ‘gladly!’

After she left, I realized my first impression had been dubbed the lesser minds problem by Nicholas Epley and psychologist Adam Waytz.

According to Keohane:

“Lesser minds, they explain, works like this. Because we can’t see what’s happening in other people’s heads, we have “what appears to be a universal tendency to assume that others’ minds are less sophisticated and more superficial than one’s own.” That means we chronically underestimate strangers’ intelligence, their willpower, the ability to feel human emotions like pride, embarrassment, and shame. Perhaps this is why we expect interactions with strangers to go poorly: because we subconsciously believe they don’t have much to offer.”

Later in my trip, on the section from Chicago to New York City, the Lake Shore Limited, I connected with a tattoo artist from Spain who had been living with a tattoo shop-owning friend in Los Angeles. We spoke of family, comfort foods, the sad state of food in America, coffee, tattoos, guns, safety, job opportunities, and the general state of the world. I got to share climate anxieties and learn a perspective on Americans from someone outside our culture.

Since arriving in my hometown on Long Island, I have finished the book and learned more about the benefits of talking to strangers. Here are a few quotes:

When you talk to people you don’t know, you learn that everyone has a bit of gold; everyone has at least one thing to say that will surprise you, amuse you, horrify you, edify you.

Keohane asks himself:

“Why don’t we talk to strangers, When will we? What happens when we do? … What happens is this: we become better, smarter, and happier people, and strangers — and by extension, the world — become less scary to us.”

During my visit to New York City, I spoke with Puerto Ricans about hurricane Maria and life on the Island, to a glazier going home from work on the Long Island Railroad who showed me amazing pictures of his glass projects in high rises in Manhattan. A young man heading home at midnight feeling dreamy from a wonderful first date.

I approached my 40th High School reunion as the opportunity to talk to strangers because, at this point, that’s what most people are. And unexpectedly, although I had a slight feeling of dread on entering the room, I had a really good time.

So talk to strangers. It’s really not as scary as you might think.

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This post was previously published on An Injustice!

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