Why should you make a conversation with a stranger?

Find out the best reasons to start talking with someone you don’t know.

Conversations are links. Let’s imagine every conversation to be a tiny metal link and every time you talk to a stranger a metal link is formed. Every conversation that you have after that moment allow the link to get stronger and stronger.

A conversation is an adventure, it is an open door. It can give you a whole new perspective. It can start a war, It can also end one. A conversation defines who we are as a human race.

Every person that you have met in your life so far was once a stranger to you, and you knew absolutely nothing about them until you had that first conversation. Since we were born, we were told not to talk to strangers. Parents say that to their children, and it makes sense because they are children. But I beg to differ for adults and highly recommend talking to strangers.

Just try it.

Every stranger comes with an opportunity, an opportunity to have an experience you’ve never had, hear a story you have never heard, learn something you don’t know. What are you so afraid of? What is the worst that could happen? Do you fear that people won’t like you? Well, they don’t like you right now for the simple and good reason that they don’t know you.

Keep it simple: “Hi”, “Hello”, “What’s up”. Gather all your enthusiasm, put on a big smile and just say it. Once you feel comfortable enough, you can ask a personal question. By personal question, I do not mean you should ask how many sexual relationships the person you are talking to had, by personal I mean something that people would be willing to share without even knowing you. “Interesting name, where does that come from, is there a story behind it?”, “What brings you to this beautiful city?”, “Do you remember the first day you landed here?”. You would be surprised how much people are willing to share if you just ask. Answers to those questions are always something unique, always something personal.

Let me tell you this little story. One day, back when I was living in Vancouver, I was late for a meeting, so I took a cab. I was barely inside the cab that I asked the driver “Where do you come from?”. The 60 years old Indi driver goes on to tell me all about his life in Maharashtra. We talked about family, music, politics. There were only 8 miles from the place he picked me up to the final destination. He ended convinced that I was the perfect husband for his 20 years old college-educated half Canadian daughter. What I am trying to make you visualize here is that what starts with a “Hello”, can end with a marriage proposal. This is a warning.

Avoid negative.

Nothings kills more a conversation than negative. When you meet someone for the first time, try to find the one thing that you and that person might have in common. When you start at that point and move outward from there you will find that the conversation becomes a lot more fluent because all of a sudden both of you are on the same side of something. And that’s a really powerful feeling. If it happens that you are in the same place at the same time with someone, it means something. There is something that must go on, so take advantage of it. Live that thing.

Ask for an opinion.

I read somewhere “people will forget what you do or what you say but they will never forget how you make them feel”. All of us have opinions, and we all want them to be heard. So go and ask for it, you might be surprised by the answer you will get. Asking for an opinion is where a 2 ways street opens. That is when real communications begin.

Don’t make the mistake that most people do to ask for an opinion about something really difficult when you barely know the person, somewhere in a room full of very well-informed people, it might make them feel a bit cornered. It might make them feel they could fail, and that it’s an examination in order to know if they really belong here. There is no need for anyone to fail at a first-time conversation.

Listen to listen, not to be polite.

When someone is trying to have a conversation with you, the least you could do is to really be wholeheartedly present. Make eye contact, feel the conversation. Remember what they said, remember their name and say it back to them, you have no idea how important you are making them feel. It’s so awful when you meet someone for the 10th time and they still say “you must be Peter, oh no it’s John sorry”. Don’t be that kind of person. Remember these little things about people like their children’s name, their wife’s name or their girlfriend’s name, just don’t mix up the last two because that could be disastrous. Be genuinely interested, and automatically you will become an investor in their well-being so they will feel responsible to you to keep that conversation going.

A conversation is like reading a book. You can make conversation with anyone. And every person is a really good book. It’s so sad that people’s lives are being boiled down by catchy headlines, cause that’s not what they are. That’s not what we are. We are entire human stories, each one of us on that planet has something to say, some of us just struggle sometimes to find someone to share it with.

So what are you going to do? Are you going to walk around in that big library that the world is, look at the hardbound copies and read the titles or are you going to reach for a book, open a page, and start reading a story?