Kio
Stark insists we should. In a stirring TED talk, Stark shares how talking to
strangers can enhance our lives and open us to new opportunities. Stark’s chief concern: by teaching our
children, and ourselves, to fear strangers, we just may be closing ourselves
off to meaningful encounters.
Stark
is one of those rare humans who consciously makes contact with strangers,
wherever she finds them. And I can
relate. I’m often struck by the fact that while 7.2 billion of us are, in essence, fellow travelers, we nonetheless spend much of our time separating from one
another.
Not
Stark. When she says hello to people on the street, as she often does, her
four-year-old asks: “Do we know them?”
“No,
they’re our neighbor.”
“Are
they our friend?”
“No,
it’s just good to be friendly.”
Stark
pauses every time she says these words because, “as a woman, particularly, I
know that not every stranger on the street has the best intentions.” But Stark
insists: “It is good to be friendly, and it’s good to learn when not to be, but
none of that means we have to be afraid.”
Author
of the novel “Follow Me Down,” and the TED book “When Strangers Meet,” Stark
cites two major benefits to using our senses instead of our fears:
“The
first one is that it liberates us. When you think about it, using perception
instead of categories is much easier said than done. Categories are something
our brains use. When it comes to people, it's sort of a shortcut for learning
about them. We see male, female, young, old, black, brown, white, stranger,
friend, and we use the information in that box.
“It's
quick, it's easy and it's a road to bias. And it means we're not thinking about
people as individuals. I know an American researcher who travels frequently in
Central Asia and Africa, alone. She's entering into towns and cities as a
complete stranger. She has no bonds, no connections. She's a foreigner. Her
survival strategy is this: get one stranger to see you as a real, individual
person. If you can do that, it'll help other people see you that way, too.
“The
second benefit of using our senses has to do with intimacy. I know it sounds a
little counterintuitive, intimacy and strangers, but these quick interactions
can lead to a feeling that sociologists call ‘fleeting intimacy’. So, it's a brief
experience that has emotional resonance and meaning.”
Five ways to
connect with strangers
So
how do we do it? What techniques can we
use to connect with strangers? Stark offers five:
1.
Smile. “Find somebody
who is making eye contact. That’s a good signal. The first thing is a simple
smile. If you’re passing somebody on the street . . . smile. See what happens.”
2.
Triangulation. When you’re with
a stranger, find a third object (e.g., a piece of public art, a scene on the
street), then “make a comment about that third thing, and see if it starts a
conversation.”
3.
Noticing. One popular way
to connect is by simply giving a compliment. Says Stark: “I’m a big fan of
noticing people’s shoes. . . . And they're pretty neutral as far as giving
compliments goes. People always want to tell you things about their awesome
shoes.”
4.
Dogs and Babies. “It can be
awkward to talk to someone on the street,” notes Stark. “You don't know how
they're going to respond. But you can always talk to their dog or their baby.
The dog or the baby is a social conduit to the person, and you can tell by how
they respond whether they're open to talking more.”
5.
Disclosure. “This is a very
vulnerable thing to do, and it can be very rewarding,” explains Stark. “So next
time you're talking to a stranger and you feel comfortable, tell them something
true about yourself, something really personal. . . . Sometimes in
conversation, it comes up, people ask me, ‘What does your dad do?’ or, ‘Where
does he live?’ And sometimes I tell them the whole truth, which is that he died
when I was a kid. Always in those moments, they share their own experiences of
loss. We tend to meet disclosure with disclosure, even with strangers.”
Stark’s
bottom line: “If you don't talk to strangers, you're missing out. . . . We
spend a lot of time teaching our children about strangers. What would happen if
we spent more time teaching ourselves? We could reject all the ideas that make
us so suspicious of each other. We could make a space for change.”
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