The Reason You Don't Meet More People

I like to make friends with people I don't know. I talk to everybody, mostly. If I'm at the grocery store I make friends in the aisle. I meet employees, I meet customers. In line I make friends with my linemates and the cashier. It's nice, I like to meet people, I like to get to know them even if it's just for a brief moment.

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who is the same way in terms of getting to know people. We were discussing how most people are drastically different, they're uncomfortable meeting new people and often don't initiate conversations with people they've never met. We decided this was at least in part due to the lesson all children are taught "Don't talk to strangers." It seems many of us as adults have clung to this rule and employ it either consciously or sub-consciously.

My friend noted that the word "stranger" may be the root of the problem. She said that strangers are a bad name for people you don't know, they aren't necessarily strange-er. What would they be stranger than? She suggested that perhaps it'd be better if those who we've never met were called "Unknowns." The term "Unknown" doesn't come equipped with the negative connotation of strangeness.

From now on I am not using the word stranger anymore. If I have a child I will teach them to talk to Unknowns and take their candy, after all Unknowns aren't so bad, they're just not yet known. I suggest you do the same and see how many friends you have after a week of only seeing a world of Unknowns rather than Strangers.

><(("> Jeffy