I’m not doing well with following that old warning. Talking way too often with strangers these days. Almost anyone I pass by. Doesn’t matter where I am. Nothing really important to communicate. Very casual. Just some sort of need to connect.
Is this something that happens to us as we age?
No one at home. I think I run errands and half the reason is for human contact. I talk with everyone all along the way. Even out in the parking lot. I remember having a whole conversation with a lady at the Pearland HEB about her watermelon as she was coming out and I was going in. Must have just read something about how to pick out the ripe ones. I tend to use the same corny lines with the check-out people. I need better writers. Sounding like a very tired vaudeville hack. They are always nice to me, but I can tell I stopped being funny several years ago.
For me and my situation, there are fewer and fewer people at work to talk with. I have classes of students. A handful are interested in real conversations. When I was in college, I can’t imagine what I would have said to a professor. Mostly, I’m walking back and forth to class each day trying to smile and say something to students I pass by. I don’t know any of them (hardly). Just something light and harmless. More difficult because two-thirds have got technology in their ears. Easy to ignore the silly old guy with the hat.
“. . .sometimes one feels freer speaking to a stranger than to people one knows. Why is that? Probably because a stranger sees us the way we are, not as he wishes to think we are.” ―
The lady at the dry cleaners who’s still wearing a mask is always ready for small talk. Especially when it’s not someone complaining. I still find it hard to interact with the mask. Can’t read the expressions. That’s why young people today are more clumsy with social interactions. They grew up using phones, not real faces. Didn’t learn how to interpret body language and create their own social selves in the process.
I use an old fashioned “mom and pop” pharmacy. They hire kids to work the counter and now, after so many years (including cancer), I know all the pharmacists. I visit only a few times a month, but there’s always something to connect about when I do. In high school, my best friends from church and I worked at a drug store. That was at least 100 years ago. But, as I look back, it was invaluable life experience. Learning by practice, how to to talk with the much older adults who worked there.
“The real in us is silent; the acquired is talkative.” ―
If I end up going out to eat – I want to insert some conversation that humanizes the experience with all those serving. Even those bussing the table. As a social scientist, I know that often there are people working all around us that we never even see. Can you imagine how that must feel, being in a service occupation, but no one really knows you’re there – until the bathroom runs out of TP. While in college, I worked as a waiter. The more entertaining I could be, the better the tips were. The hardest workers were the dishwashers. No one ever really saw them either.
Don’t forget to be kind to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it! – Hebrews 13:2
When I am with friends or co-workers, I talk waaaay too much. It’s like I was just released from solitary confinement or something. Sometimes I can see people glancing at the door to my office, trying to plan their escape. I can’t seem to stop. I look in the mirror and tell myself, “keep your mouth shut this time.” So far, isn’t working. I need to get a little statue of St. John the Silent (454-558 AD) and put in front of me as a reminder. This saint lived alone for 76 years! I thought I had it bad. He probably didn’t even have a good internet connection.
Casual connections with strangers is healthy for me personally and for society in general. I guess I’m doing my part. Those teenagers running the concession stand at the football games seem terrified each time I ask “how’s business?” I think they are just prepared for “small, medium or large” answers. I’d like to do my part to engage a disengaging world. What can I do today to keep myself from curling up under a bridge as my life keeps coming apart? No matter how high the waves or loud the thunder, keep swimming for the shore.
“A stranger is just a friend I haven’t met yet” ―
The Invisible Man 