How good are you at striking up conversation with a stranger? Do you allow your prejudices and assumptions prevent you saying even hello let alone being able to allow others differing opinions or do you simply hubristically block to protect your ego, time, patience or anger?
A recent study comes up with some surprising conclusions:
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37 comments (26 - 37)
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.It depends. When I was working, or with friends, I am fine. If I meet someone when I am out, and there are a lot of people around who all know each other, I am usually pretty quiet.
Wisewoman3
Level 7
Sep 18, 2018
1
The person who believes that "it is better to be thought a fool than open your mouth and prove it", is usually just in need of a good dose of self esteem. There is nothing wrong with them.
I live in Kansas. It's perfectly normal to strike up a conversation with a total stranger here. Everybody does it.
sewchick57
Level 7
Sep 18, 2018
3
Even Dorothy ... or did she start the habit?
@FrayedBear I don't know if Dorothy started it or not but you can go to Liberal and chat with the Dorothies, they have several.
@sewchick57 Liberal is a town in USA.
@FrayedBear Yes. Liberal is a small town in Kansas and it's where the Wizard of Oz museum is and they have at least 6 Dorothys every year.
Nothing surprising about those conclusions.
I do often engage (primarily with theists) for the purpose of exposing the errors of their faith (belief without evidence) position.
When It come to females, I really don't have to worry about rejection because most all around here are theists so there there is virtually nobody I would be interested in. So my position is not dependent on being accepted or rejected as my goal is not to impress them. If they display an extended social interest, I demonstrate in lack of tolerance for religious beliefs and no gain, no loss.
NoMagicCookie
Level 8
Sep 18, 2018
2
No magic cookie!
I am good at talking to strangers. People find me easy to talk to, and frequently overshare. I think I have a broad base of general knowledge and find chit chat easy. After doing that for a while I need to slip back into my solitude and recharge.
HippieChick58
Level 9
Sep 18, 2018
4
That sounds like it came from my own mouth. I think we're related somehow. 
@Anne209 Sistahs from another mother.
I talk to everyone, all of the time. My girl and I are the ones walking through target like "I love those shoes" "where'd you get that shirt?" "That smells good, you should get it" "who dey!" "Do you think and 8yo boy would like this or that better?" "Your smile is so pretty!"
This is why the boys won't go shopping with us. But, we meet so many nice people!
Minta79
Level 7
Sep 18, 2018
3
@Gwendolyn2018 With that gorgeous hair and slim figure of yours you know that you cannot help but elicit attention from others. But why laughter, yours is not a face that invites others to laugh at it?
I have absolutely no issues in meeting and talking to strangers. One of the activities I enjoy doing while camping, is walking the campground and talking to campers and getting a bit of their stories. I will introduce myself to a strange woman to see if she might be receptive to getting acquainted, and it is about 50/50.
jlynn37
Level 8
Sep 18, 2018
4
Work as a dj and been in the entertainment and service industry for over 25 yrs.
Can talk to a large crowd no problem but still have problems striking up conversations with strangers.
hippydog
Level 8
Sep 18, 2018
2
Missing your security blankets?
I have started many conversations with strangers who do, wear, say things that attract my attention. So far it has been a positive experience........
patchoullijulie
Level 8
Sep 18, 2018
3
depends most social interactions take place in a pub and nowadays revolve round my rescue dog so he generally carries the brunt of the interactions for me.If they are loud and obnoxious they can fuck off but if just looking for some social discourse sure any red flags during that though eg racism homophobia misogyny etc again they can fuck off but are told so in words not actions
weeman
Level 7
Sep 18, 2018
2
I can talk about anything to anybody. It's one of the few things I really like about myself even when I'm feeling down.
Hordo
Level 6
Sep 18, 2018
3
Because it lifts you up? Perhaps you should do it more often - make a friend a day.
i am fabulous at striking up conversations with strangers. i do it whenever possible. my guy is shy and is just amazed how i used to talk to people on buses (i don't ride public buses anymore) or how, at a social gathering, i just start talking to just anyone. i don't make more than than the usual assumptions (like that the other party is alive, if i see breathing and eye movement) or prejudices (i would probably not strike up a conversation with someone wearing a swastika armband).
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genessa
Level 8
Sep 18, 2018
3
I have an old friend like that. He would and did talk to anyone on the 4 hour daily train commute. None are friends. 25 years in a singles club and I don't think that he has any friends that last more than a few years. He is travelled, intelligent to a point, sensible, football mad and drinks. After 76 years, the last 40 mainly lived without a woman and yet he is still out there in the herd looking for one.
@FrayedBear i'm not friends with anyone i have met on a bus where i currently live, not solely because i no longer ride public transportation. when i lived in los angeles, i made friends on the bus, since we turned out also to be neighbors. but i do not have your friend's problem at any rate. i live with my guy; we've been together for 18 years. i don't drink. (i hate football too.) i've never belonged to a singles club. i always enjoyed being single. now i enjoy being half of a couple. i don't think your friend's trouble stem from his ability to chat easily with strangers. one doesn't do that with the expectation of their becoming friends. one does that to be friendly (which is different) and to make the ride, or the gathering, or whatever, pleasant, and also because chatting with others can be, in and of itself, pleasant.
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@genessa indubitably and particularly when a 4-hour commute is calling. I'm not sure that my friend, who I haven't seen for ten years but we talk about every 3 months, actually has a problem. He simply makes out that he has a problem.
Long ago I read that historically one third of the population never marry or have children. If still true a fascinating fact.
@FrayedBear i never had children because i didn't, and don't, want them. i never married because when i was young there appeared to be one framework for marriage, which seemed to me to be the equivalent of prostitution, and i wanted no part of it. my relationship with my guy is not like that. we may as well be married, but we're old and sick and poor, and marriage would actually result in our losing the meager benefits that keep us alive. we may get around to it if we survive, but it surely won't be for the purpose of having children.
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@genessa you make some laudatory points particularly about children, prostitution and elder abuse through discriminatory law.
I have just had a quick read of your profile and it makes the remark above of not talking to swastika-bearing people all the more intriguing. I think that I probably still favour the Pol Pot method of conversation with intellectuals when it comes to swastika wearing people. Thank you for your replies and good luck with the biography
@FrayedBear thank you kindly. i am rewriting a portion of it because alas that portion was begun before i owned a computer that actually had a hard drive. it operated on a system that, if it were a car, would be the equivalent of one with square wheels. it's gone. pffft, gone! meanwhile i've lived more than another third of my then-lifetime, so the is more bio to graph. i might never catch up! (i wonder if that would contribute to literal immortality or only literary immortality?)
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@genessa I remember the days of 5" and 3.5" floppies and a 40-megabyte hard drive was pure luxury! A friend recently told that Window latest version does not recognise the old drives. How true that is I don't know.
@genessa It all depends if current events are germane to the story and shed new light into your biography.
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