Don't Talk to Strangers!

Growing up, my mom told her four children never to talk to strangers. This is easy enough when you’re seven years old: if a creepy guy in a big van with no windows offers you candy or asks for directions, simply run the other way. But somewhere between training wheels and drivers training, interacting with strangers becomes part of everyday life. It’s how learning happens; how business works...even how love evolves.

If I were to take my mother’s advice as an adult, running from every stranger would make me a world-class marathoner. Like most people, I’ve traded the childhood run from the unknown for the opportunity to understand what makes strangers interesting, friendly, enlightening or just very strange.

I still fondly recall my run-in with a stranger at the supermarket. He was the handsome man in a suit, who offered me random—but very effective words of wisdom. Then there was the older gentleman who sat next to me and cheered on his grandson at a track meet. He intrigued me with stories about the changing face of our small town. This stranger emanated a sense of contentment with life that I hope to someday achieve.

I also recall, not very fondly, an encounter with a stranger who viewed my personal successes as failures and then had the audacity to ask me to dinner. Even if he drove a BMW, he might as well have driven the big, rusty, windowless van—because my instincts told me to run. Then of course there was the stranger who did take me to dinner, looked deep enough into my eyes to make my stomach leap—and then never pursued our special connection. The disappointment lingers.

Good or bad, I believe my interactions with strangers ultimately make me a better person. The good I see in others inspires me. Strangers help me to evaluate who I want to be and how I want to change. And if they don’t lighten my load they thicken my skin. I can’t invest much thought or emotion into strangers who judge me. After all, they’re strangers.