After a bad breakup in 2015, I followed some advice from the socialskills subreddit to âtalk to everyoneâ so that you get better at talking to women you might want to date. The advice was not to only talk to attractive people but everyone. The old man reading a Russian newspaper, the kid on bike doing tricks, people in the elevator.
I do that now and it brings me a lot of joy. Recently while leaving a botanical garden I spoke to a man who was excitedly looking for a few specific plants. He is a botanist (amateur? professional? unclear) and I enjoyed sharing in his passion for a moment. Then I saw a maintenance guy moving with great intention who took a moment to ask me and my family if we had a nice time. We did, and I asked him about the papers in his hand. âGotta get approval for this purchase request asap.â He said. We talked a bit about how nice it is to work at such a beautiful place.
I highly recommend talking to strangers! People are lovely. Go out and try it.
When I was staying with my older brothers, one of their magazines was along the lines of maybe a GQ but in the 90âs, iirc I was probably in middle school, and probably reading content a bit above my age level in terms of concept.
One of their articles though was about âtalking to womenâ but it also emphasized just talking to _anyone_. It had suggestions like âif youâre out at the bar, just ask to sit with a random group, introduce yourself, and have a conversation.â
Many years later in college, I did indeed try this at a bar and was pleasantly surprised. I didnât make any long term friends, or find a new partner, but I did really start honing the skill of being social with anyone. Itâs hard, and especially for me and my social anxiety, it has also really helped me feel more comfortable in places unfamiliar and people unknown.
For me that clicked we are all just kids. Your parents are struggling with some problems in everyday life as you are. Your teachers sometimes might say they don't know the answer to your question in their field which is alright. (Parents and teachers are two figures who we look up to.) My point is that if you're thinking, "they have much more experience and I don't, so no need to bother them.." you're wrong. Basically, they could have more things, but about same lot of problems in the life as you. After that, just start asking simple questions.
As the article says, you just take the risk. Maybe you will bother the person. Itâs okay, youâll be able to quickly tell if you do, and you just gracefully back away and go on with your day. Itâll probably happen much less than you think.
I concur. And would just add two points:
(1) Make it that youâre not asking for anything / donât open with something that could be perceived as a setup to asking for money, or pushing a religion. :)
2) be sensitive to social cues or that they want to be left alone, like terse answers or shifting their attention away from you
Would you be bothered if a stranger struck up a nice conversation with you? Most people like it! And even if they donât, thatâs ok, trust people to tell you their boundaries and respect them when they do. Nothing wrong with bothering someone if they tell you or send a strong signal and you respect it.
If the answer is, "of course not". Pull that thread. Honestly, so much "therapy" for some of us boils down to confronting/examining that disconnect and exploring why it exists/how it came to be.
Not the guy you asked, but my answer is: only if they are panhandling. Otherwise I usually feel a little surprised that someone would have any interest in my thoughts. So I feel a bit tickled if they have genuine interest.
I think that it comes down to that people often like to talk about their interests but worry that the recipient may not be. So we end up with two people who want to talk but worried about the others feelings.
These are called questions. Theyâre great. Hell, if you want to be regarded as a great conversationalist and great storyteller, all you have to do is ask questions.
My grandpa had a gift for people - the man could start a conversation with anyone, form fast friends and remember their spouseâs middle name in twenty years.
As he put it, itâs a coin toss. Maybe youâre bothering them or maybe theyâre grateful to have someone to distract them. Each is equally true before you start the conversation.
The key is being able to read social cues. If you can, you can stop bothering them.
"EXCUSE ME, SIR! I see you are moving with great intention. Might your hurriedness be in connection with those papers you hold in your hand? Pray tell, for I much desire to converse! Aah, I see, I was right to assume you were in a hurry. Anyway, it must be wonderful to be working at a place as beautiful as this, is it not? Hah ha ha yees, isn't it wonderful. Well, alright then be on your way if you must."
Sorry but I couldn't help imagining you as the fake health inspector from Fawlty Towers while reading your comment.
I do agree with you though, talking is great, we are social animals even though modern life allows us to forget this, to our own detriment.
I highly recommend talking to strangers! People are lovely. Go out and try it.
Disagree. You don't want to be the stereotypical annoying person who just strikes up random conversations without initiation. There is a time to talk to strangers, but just doing so for the sake of doing so, is not always the best way. I think the best time is in line or waiting. If someone appears busy, then not.
This will never be me (I find any kind of smalltalk excruciating). But I'm so grateful, not to say relieved, that there are people like you. Society needs you.
My recently deceased mother had a talent for talking to anyone at any time in any language. She's always been incredibly social and could establish connections with strangers very rapidly. One time she brought in a school teacher/sheep farmer from Dagestan selling yarn from his sheep's wool, she met him at the market and bought all yarn and asked if he had somewhere to stay before going back, and he didn't. He stayed in our house for a couple of nights, and then we visited him in that little village in mountains of Dagestan on a summer vacation, talk about going back a few centuries in time, an incredible and unusual experience.
I've had to spend week and a half battling Gmail daily email account limits sending batches of 500 emails just to notify people in her address book, receiving hundreds of responses. Her memorial was attended by hundreds of people.
It served her very well in her chosen career of real estate sales, although I think she'd might have done really well in community organizing or even politics where those skills are also very useful.
On the flip side, it was sometimes difficult to be there as family wanting some attention, since her bright light was always shining in many directions.
I've inherited just some of that talent, and I think it is a talent, but trainable.
I talk to everyone. My friends and family joke that itâs impossible for me to go anywhere without getting into conversation with someone. I canât imagine not doing it. Earlier this year I walked down the main shopping street it the part of the large city where I live, with a colleague from out of town.
A few shopkeepers waved through their windows as I went past, the greengrocer came out of his shop to have a quick chat, the dry cleaner asked after my dog, and the guy from the household shop told me they have more of the cleaning paste I use. We bumped into a couple of folk I see every couple of weeks, then got a coffee and I paid the âspecialâ rate rather than the rate on the sign that they charge people they donât know.
My colleague said - half jokingly - âI didnât realise you were mayorâ, and tried to convince me that I should go into local politics. She couldnât understand when I said that would take all the pleasure out of it, because talking to people would become transactional rather than joyous.
I canât imagine not talking to people. A while back I changed the route I take when I walk my dogs each day, and the guy who runs the local fish stall started asking people if I had left the area or died. I donât buy fish from him each week- but every time I see him stop and we have a chat.
I feel incredibly lucky to be missed by my fish I get just because I started walking my dogs a different route.
I grew up in a tiny village in the country. The building I live in has hundreds of people living in it, compared to the few dozen houses where I grew up. I think talking to people makes a huge city feel smaller.
> talking to people would become transactional rather than joyous
Only if you let it! I am guessing you would do well, because people can absolutely tell when you are being a smarmy politician and when you're actually a legitimately friendly, decent person.
> She couldnât understand when I said that would take all the pleasure out of it, because talking to people would become transactional rather than joyous.
It doesn't have to and I suspect that's why your colleague suggested it. Politicians act that way because that's what people want except they don't want someone who is acting.
You have what politicians pretend to have because it makes people like them.
You might be a terrible politician for other reasons but I don't think what you've said is true.
It is a hard skill, but I do recommend it. I have always struggled with initiating a conversation with a stranger, but 99 times out of 100 it has turned out well. My teenage daughter just stands there agape when I do it, she is still struggling even to speak up to the cashier taking her fast food order. I keep telling her that it makes me pretty nervous too, but it is so worth taking the little leap.
I usually avoid strangers, because those who talk to you are usually weirdos.
Thing is, if normal people don't talk to strangers anymore, then only the weirdos are left, reinforcing the idea that only weirdos talk to strangers...
+1 In any major city it's probably 90% chance they're either a crook trying to scam you out of something or mentally not quite right. The remaining 10% will be tourists or people from outside of the major city.
I understand what both of you are saying, I lived in areas where if someone is talking to you on the street theres a high chance theyre asking you for something, so you learn to just kinda block all of it out. Now that I moved to a smaller town, I find myself talking to strangers much more frequently.
In my experience, only weirdos never speak to strangers. Social skills are easy, conversations are easy and strangers are just people you donât know yet.
I still canât understand the point of this. Do you get a charge telling social anxious people theyâll be weird if they do their homework? Thatâs precisely what you did. Why?
My kids make fun of me because I know the shopkeepers around me by first name, along with the details of their businesses , and that shopping takes forever because I talk to everyone, customers included.
I just love it, itâs easy and I get a lot in return - from perks to incredible encounters. At work itâs been very helpful.
I developed that skill while traveling alone for a year , and it boils down to practicing and reading whether the person youâre talking to is ok with your talking or not.
I feel that there is a down-spiral to this. People who talk to me usually want something from me so I started avoiding people since I have the expectation that they want something form me which means that I also think I look like a weirdo whenever I try to talk to somebody so I stop talking to people.
I'm happy to see that in a sea of commenters who'd hate for anyone to strike a conversation with them, there are people who still enjoy connecting with others.
We are in a public forum afterall and we are all strangers here. I'm always happy when random person sends me an email.
It's indeed pretty interesting how our society has normalized being. what I would say is antisocial by the norms of previous generations in the form of the gen z stare.
Funnilly I remember a situation where I got a job offer from somebody from an older generation and I just stood still and stared for 1 minute. Not because I wanted to be disrespectful but because I was processing the information and I was simply so baffled that I forgot the social dance of showing the thinking on my face and doing thinking sounds (if you know you know). This led to the other person holding a lecture on how you should respond that you do not have a response yet but I thinking. I ended up accepting.
I agree that expanding communication with strangers is important. But starting with "Do you mind if I sit here? Or did you want to be alone with your thoughts?" and then continuing a conversation for 10+ minutes is a real struggle for me. Sometimes I even wonderâhow exactly does this kind of individual conversation actually help me? Maybe this is just me.
Yeah it'll be hard. But with a lot of practice it'll get easier. I think part of the practice is recognizing "they don't want me to continue this conversation" and bailing, vs trying to force every interaction to be a deeper conversation.
I never practiced "idle conversation with a complete stranger" like that because I was lazy. But I did practice making normal, non-sexual, conversation with women on dating sites and dates so that I could go from "isolated in school, then after going online, low response rate and never more than 1 or 2 dates" to someone in a long-term relationship. And recognizing that sort of "ok there's just not any interest here, move along" signal was definitely relevant there too.
Skills take investment.
My parents didn't give me nearly as many opportunities to practice these skills as they had when they grew up, and pop culture actively encouraged me not to talk to strangers as a kid, so I had to work harder at them as an adult. But it was worth it.
I find the decay of human connections an interesting problem to solve. I used to have an app that encouraged meeting in person by utilizing friends inviting other friends[0]. This solved many app-problems like correct matching and safety.
Didn't catch on, though. Setting up events turned out to be too prohibitive. If this interests anyone feel free to contact me at contact [at] eventful [dot] is
joke or not (actually not) but read some women spaces and it's obviously a lot of people, especially women, just want to be let alone. Don't start talking with random people unless they start talking to you and it's consensual, simple as that.
Interesting. Not the content itself, but the intention behind it: Improvement of social cohesion.
Hmmmm.
People are compartmentalized into groups hating on each other. They're afraid of committing wrong-think and getting labelled, branded, attacked. They prioritize people who aren't there (online people, like you and myself) over those who are.
It's especially interesting from my perspective, because in Vienna we still have some sort of KaffeeHaus-Kultur. CoffeeHouse culture. You can sit there for hours, reading your book, with a coffee and it does not matter, unless the space is really needed.
It's very common to just chat with whoever runs the place at that moment, too. A sense of familiarity is part of the job. For regulars, like myself, the coffee house turns into a second living room:
We people there started talking to each other.
When I was a teenager, many years ago, I had a coffeehouse for table-soccer. It wasn't a club, or association. It was a coffeehouse with table soccer, with gatherings of players.
...
I guess my tangent meant to point at the need for both general, or specialized, "social hubs", where regularly appearing people silently agree to, eventually, getting talked to.
Not like a club. Clubs are too much commitment, causing resistance.
I find the community on Clubhouse understand this better than anyone (well, this is true for Reddit and HN too). Clubhouse especially though because people are bat shit crazy on there and somehow conversations happen. Itâs a hidden gem that I think the HN community would enjoy.
I haven't heard of Clubhouse being mentioned in a long time. Last time I checked, it didn't gain traction after 2021 and never heard of the app being mentioned since then.
Are there people still using the app? If so how are they making money?
That the copyright notice on their site still says "2025" probably says a lot. I was kinda expecting to find an AI pivot when I opened that landing page.
For what itâs worth, they are living a AI pivot. TOS just changed so they keep transcripts of all voice and actually pop it into an LLM to subjectively determine your karma points. They are absolutely selling audio data for fine tuning purposes imho, and they are absolutely training on all audio. Itâs a AI shovel selling company for sure.
Man, talking to strangers in random places just feels socially uncalibrated to me, like I'm being retarded. The first time I across that idea was in the form of "cold approach", the idea of trying to score a date from a woman you see while out and about.
I wonder if anyone who did this had to start from a baseline of feeling this is straight up weird (I'm pretty sure it is weird in my culture).
I've had some great conversations with random strangers on public transport and in shops etc. Oddly I'm a complete introvert with quite bad social anxiety and avoid social events like work parties etc. But I like talking to strangers I'll never see again. I think it's partly because I'm not trying to make an impression and I'm not there just to socialise. So it's a bit crap for me that people are withdrawing and not engaging in random chit chat as much. It's so easy to be lonely these days.
I hate these sort of things. Like everyone is just sitting there hoping, hoping for someone to strike up a conversation with them. Oh thank god someone has started a conversation with me! /sarcasm
Respect people's boundaries please. Don't force yourself on people unless they're obviously willing participants.
People put extroversion/introversion as like this binary, permanent thing that cannot be changed. In reality I think it is a spectrum that changes throughout the day and the situation. Someone might be introverted at 8am on their commute, but a wild extrovert at 9pm in the bar. Don't assume, don't try to "help" people you know nothing about.
What's being "forced"? And what boundaries aren't being respected? If someone attempts to strike up a conversation and you're not interested, you can signal that. Or just be direct and say you don't feel like talking. Sure, that can be uncomfortable, but you can't expect humanity as a whole to repress its social nature just to spare you occasional, fleeting moments of mild discomfort. (And despite the wide spectrum of social inclinations -- I'm definitely on the introverted end -- I think it's accurate to say that humans, as a species, crave social interaction.)
In your ideal world, how would someone even signal they are a "willing participant" without talking to someone?
Because it is this "talk to anyone" thing, like if they say no you just need to keep trying because really deep down they just don't know how nice you're being by giving them a chance to talk to you.
1) Compared to the US, Brits live very socially isolated lives. You are just used to it.
2) There was a (small) government taskforce in the UK to prevent/arrest men for approaching women on the street. It backfired badly as you might expect. It was politically unpopular, yet it got enough coverage to change people's behavior but not in the way the politicians expected. Specially, amounts of SA didn't change but the number of dates did.
3) Someone is upset at this change in behavior and is trying to revert it.
4) This is someone from the leopards eating faces party complaining about having their face eaten by a leopard.
OP is using the usual conservative tactic of conflating "person convicted of catcalling, stalking or other intentionally sexual behaviour" with "person
talking to a woman".
I am currently struggling with a deep rumination loop about events from 35 years ago; the trigger three weeks ago was completely accidental, but it was one of the biggest shocks Iâve had in decades. I can't help but think how different life would be if I had the communication skills then that I have now.
Growing up in a conservative, religious household outside the US, there was no support for slow processors, and those who didn't fit the dogma were simply told to 'shut up.' The more you were forced to shut up, the more you closed off. Since this was before the internet, self-help tools were non-existent. I really wish the coaching tools and protocols we have today had been available back then. It wouldn't have changed everything, but it would have given me the tools to manage many situations that I simply couldn't handle at the time.
And yes, I agree with the headline... talk to people, anyone, everyone. Maybe youâll get help, or maybe you just go for itâbecause regardless of any embarrassment you face now, you may find yourself proud of that courage decades later.
After a bad breakup in 2015, I followed some advice from the socialskills subreddit to âtalk to everyoneâ so that you get better at talking to women you might want to date. The advice was not to only talk to attractive people but everyone. The old man reading a Russian newspaper, the kid on bike doing tricks, people in the elevator.
I do that now and it brings me a lot of joy. Recently while leaving a botanical garden I spoke to a man who was excitedly looking for a few specific plants. He is a botanist (amateur? professional? unclear) and I enjoyed sharing in his passion for a moment. Then I saw a maintenance guy moving with great intention who took a moment to ask me and my family if we had a nice time. We did, and I asked him about the papers in his hand. âGotta get approval for this purchase request asap.â He said. We talked a bit about how nice it is to work at such a beautiful place.
I highly recommend talking to strangers! People are lovely. Go out and try it.
When I was staying with my older brothers, one of their magazines was along the lines of maybe a GQ but in the 90âs, iirc I was probably in middle school, and probably reading content a bit above my age level in terms of concept.
One of their articles though was about âtalking to womenâ but it also emphasized just talking to _anyone_. It had suggestions like âif youâre out at the bar, just ask to sit with a random group, introduce yourself, and have a conversation.â
Many years later in college, I did indeed try this at a bar and was pleasantly surprised. I didnât make any long term friends, or find a new partner, but I did really start honing the skill of being social with anyone. Itâs hard, and especially for me and my social anxiety, it has also really helped me feel more comfortable in places unfamiliar and people unknown.
I love this. I know I struggle with "I don't want to bother this person".
How do you deal with that?
For me that clicked we are all just kids. Your parents are struggling with some problems in everyday life as you are. Your teachers sometimes might say they don't know the answer to your question in their field which is alright. (Parents and teachers are two figures who we look up to.) My point is that if you're thinking, "they have much more experience and I don't, so no need to bother them.." you're wrong. Basically, they could have more things, but about same lot of problems in the life as you. After that, just start asking simple questions.
As the article says, you just take the risk. Maybe you will bother the person. Itâs okay, youâll be able to quickly tell if you do, and you just gracefully back away and go on with your day. Itâll probably happen much less than you think.
I concur. And would just add two points: (1) Make it that youâre not asking for anything / donât open with something that could be perceived as a setup to asking for money, or pushing a religion. :) 2) be sensitive to social cues or that they want to be left alone, like terse answers or shifting their attention away from you
You virtually never bother them - worst case theyâll turn you down.
On the contrary, theyâre usually very happy to tell you about what they do.
Would you be bothered if a stranger struck up a nice conversation with you? Most people like it! And even if they donât, thatâs ok, trust people to tell you their boundaries and respect them when they do. Nothing wrong with bothering someone if they tell you or send a strong signal and you respect it.
See my answer to that question is âer, yes, obviously??!â and so I assume, apparently incorrectly, that everyone is like me.
Learn the social cues. People wonât say when they are busy. They might not ask you questions back, or keep doing what they do.
I got a puppy. Then everyone wanted to talk to my puppy.
Do you get bothered when someone talks to you in a nice fashion?
If the answer is, "of course not". Pull that thread. Honestly, so much "therapy" for some of us boils down to confronting/examining that disconnect and exploring why it exists/how it came to be.
Thanks for completing my comment :)
Not the guy you asked, but my answer is: only if they are panhandling. Otherwise I usually feel a little surprised that someone would have any interest in my thoughts. So I feel a bit tickled if they have genuine interest.
Yes
Interesting. How come?
I think that it comes down to that people often like to talk about their interests but worry that the recipient may not be. So we end up with two people who want to talk but worried about the others feelings.
These are called questions. Theyâre great. Hell, if you want to be regarded as a great conversationalist and great storyteller, all you have to do is ask questions.
Just practice. You will inevitably run into ppl that donât want to talk. Donât take it personally, donât push it and try again
If they seem uninterested in talking, tell them to have a nice day, then carry on with yours.
My grandpa had a gift for people - the man could start a conversation with anyone, form fast friends and remember their spouseâs middle name in twenty years.
As he put it, itâs a coin toss. Maybe youâre bothering them or maybe theyâre grateful to have someone to distract them. Each is equally true before you start the conversation.
The key is being able to read social cues. If you can, you can stop bothering them.
"EXCUSE ME, SIR! I see you are moving with great intention. Might your hurriedness be in connection with those papers you hold in your hand? Pray tell, for I much desire to converse! Aah, I see, I was right to assume you were in a hurry. Anyway, it must be wonderful to be working at a place as beautiful as this, is it not? Hah ha ha yees, isn't it wonderful. Well, alright then be on your way if you must."
Sorry but I couldn't help imagining you as the fake health inspector from Fawlty Towers while reading your comment.
I do agree with you though, talking is great, we are social animals even though modern life allows us to forget this, to our own detriment.
I highly recommend talking to strangers! People are lovely. Go out and try it.
Disagree. You don't want to be the stereotypical annoying person who just strikes up random conversations without initiation. There is a time to talk to strangers, but just doing so for the sake of doing so, is not always the best way. I think the best time is in line or waiting. If someone appears busy, then not.
This will never be me (I find any kind of smalltalk excruciating). But I'm so grateful, not to say relieved, that there are people like you. Society needs you.
This is great. Thanks, and cheers.
My recently deceased mother had a talent for talking to anyone at any time in any language. She's always been incredibly social and could establish connections with strangers very rapidly. One time she brought in a school teacher/sheep farmer from Dagestan selling yarn from his sheep's wool, she met him at the market and bought all yarn and asked if he had somewhere to stay before going back, and he didn't. He stayed in our house for a couple of nights, and then we visited him in that little village in mountains of Dagestan on a summer vacation, talk about going back a few centuries in time, an incredible and unusual experience.
I've had to spend week and a half battling Gmail daily email account limits sending batches of 500 emails just to notify people in her address book, receiving hundreds of responses. Her memorial was attended by hundreds of people.
It served her very well in her chosen career of real estate sales, although I think she'd might have done really well in community organizing or even politics where those skills are also very useful.
On the flip side, it was sometimes difficult to be there as family wanting some attention, since her bright light was always shining in many directions.
I've inherited just some of that talent, and I think it is a talent, but trainable.
I miss her already.
Beautiful story, thank you for sharing.
I talk to everyone. My friends and family joke that itâs impossible for me to go anywhere without getting into conversation with someone. I canât imagine not doing it. Earlier this year I walked down the main shopping street it the part of the large city where I live, with a colleague from out of town.
A few shopkeepers waved through their windows as I went past, the greengrocer came out of his shop to have a quick chat, the dry cleaner asked after my dog, and the guy from the household shop told me they have more of the cleaning paste I use. We bumped into a couple of folk I see every couple of weeks, then got a coffee and I paid the âspecialâ rate rather than the rate on the sign that they charge people they donât know.
My colleague said - half jokingly - âI didnât realise you were mayorâ, and tried to convince me that I should go into local politics. She couldnât understand when I said that would take all the pleasure out of it, because talking to people would become transactional rather than joyous.
I canât imagine not talking to people. A while back I changed the route I take when I walk my dogs each day, and the guy who runs the local fish stall started asking people if I had left the area or died. I donât buy fish from him each week- but every time I see him stop and we have a chat.
I feel incredibly lucky to be missed by my fish I get just because I started walking my dogs a different route.
I grew up in a tiny village in the country. The building I live in has hundreds of people living in it, compared to the few dozen houses where I grew up. I think talking to people makes a huge city feel smaller.
> talking to people would become transactional rather than joyous
Only if you let it! I am guessing you would do well, because people can absolutely tell when you are being a smarmy politician and when you're actually a legitimately friendly, decent person.
> She couldnât understand when I said that would take all the pleasure out of it, because talking to people would become transactional rather than joyous.
It doesn't have to and I suspect that's why your colleague suggested it. Politicians act that way because that's what people want except they don't want someone who is acting.
You have what politicians pretend to have because it makes people like them.
You might be a terrible politician for other reasons but I don't think what you've said is true.
Hey bud, with all due respect, youâre arguing against who someone believes they are.
It is a hard skill, but I do recommend it. I have always struggled with initiating a conversation with a stranger, but 99 times out of 100 it has turned out well. My teenage daughter just stands there agape when I do it, she is still struggling even to speak up to the cashier taking her fast food order. I keep telling her that it makes me pretty nervous too, but it is so worth taking the little leap.
I usually avoid strangers, because those who talk to you are usually weirdos.
Thing is, if normal people don't talk to strangers anymore, then only the weirdos are left, reinforcing the idea that only weirdos talk to strangers...
+1 In any major city it's probably 90% chance they're either a crook trying to scam you out of something or mentally not quite right. The remaining 10% will be tourists or people from outside of the major city.
On public transit or a street, maybe. But only maybe.
Are you willfully ignoring people at bars, night clubs, supermarkets, etc?
It's obvious 99% of the time whether or not the conversation is in the wrong place and wrong time.
You're confusing "asking people for something" with "talking to people."
Nobody wants randos coming up to them and asking for something.
Most people would be less lonely if everyone had more practice at making non-transactional conversation.
Actively avoiding conversation still qualifies as "weirdo" behavior to most people.
Or they have social skills?
I understand what both of you are saying, I lived in areas where if someone is talking to you on the street theres a high chance theyre asking you for something, so you learn to just kinda block all of it out. Now that I moved to a smaller town, I find myself talking to strangers much more frequently.
If they cone accross as mwntally ill, they dont have social skill. Per definition.
Scamming crools frequently do have good social skills, but of course there is that risk of being scammed if you talk to them.
In my experience, only weirdos never speak to strangers. Social skills are easy, conversations are easy and strangers are just people you donât know yet.
I still canât understand the point of this. Do you get a charge telling social anxious people theyâll be weird if they do their homework? Thatâs precisely what you did. Why?
My kids make fun of me because I know the shopkeepers around me by first name, along with the details of their businesses , and that shopping takes forever because I talk to everyone, customers included.
I just love it, itâs easy and I get a lot in return - from perks to incredible encounters. At work itâs been very helpful.
I developed that skill while traveling alone for a year , and it boils down to practicing and reading whether the person youâre talking to is ok with your talking or not.
In any case, it makes me immensely happy.
I feel that there is a down-spiral to this. People who talk to me usually want something from me so I started avoiding people since I have the expectation that they want something form me which means that I also think I look like a weirdo whenever I try to talk to somebody so I stop talking to people.
I'm happy to see that in a sea of commenters who'd hate for anyone to strike a conversation with them, there are people who still enjoy connecting with others.
We are in a public forum afterall and we are all strangers here. I'm always happy when random person sends me an email.
Does it work in Scandinavian countries?
It's indeed pretty interesting how our society has normalized being. what I would say is antisocial by the norms of previous generations in the form of the gen z stare. Funnilly I remember a situation where I got a job offer from somebody from an older generation and I just stood still and stared for 1 minute. Not because I wanted to be disrespectful but because I was processing the information and I was simply so baffled that I forgot the social dance of showing the thinking on my face and doing thinking sounds (if you know you know). This led to the other person holding a lecture on how you should respond that you do not have a response yet but I thinking. I ended up accepting.
I agree that expanding communication with strangers is important. But starting with "Do you mind if I sit here? Or did you want to be alone with your thoughts?" and then continuing a conversation for 10+ minutes is a real struggle for me. Sometimes I even wonderâhow exactly does this kind of individual conversation actually help me? Maybe this is just me.
Yeah it'll be hard. But with a lot of practice it'll get easier. I think part of the practice is recognizing "they don't want me to continue this conversation" and bailing, vs trying to force every interaction to be a deeper conversation.
I never practiced "idle conversation with a complete stranger" like that because I was lazy. But I did practice making normal, non-sexual, conversation with women on dating sites and dates so that I could go from "isolated in school, then after going online, low response rate and never more than 1 or 2 dates" to someone in a long-term relationship. And recognizing that sort of "ok there's just not any interest here, move along" signal was definitely relevant there too.
Skills take investment.
My parents didn't give me nearly as many opportunities to practice these skills as they had when they grew up, and pop culture actively encouraged me not to talk to strangers as a kid, so I had to work harder at them as an adult. But it was worth it.
>how exactly does this kind of individual conversation actually help me?
It doesn't. It just helps the speaker.
I find the decay of human connections an interesting problem to solve. I used to have an app that encouraged meeting in person by utilizing friends inviting other friends[0]. This solved many app-problems like correct matching and safety.
Didn't catch on, though. Setting up events turned out to be too prohibitive. If this interests anyone feel free to contact me at contact [at] eventful [dot] is
[0] https://blog.eventful.is/p/the-perfect-dating-app
or how to get labeled as a creep by every women
joke or not (actually not) but read some women spaces and it's obviously a lot of people, especially women, just want to be let alone. Don't start talking with random people unless they start talking to you and it's consensual, simple as that.
Common sense applies. If someone is on a run, dont bother them. If you are in a queue I think make a comment is OK if theh respond keep talking.
It's only creepy if you are a creep.
Interesting. Not the content itself, but the intention behind it: Improvement of social cohesion.
Hmmmm.
People are compartmentalized into groups hating on each other. They're afraid of committing wrong-think and getting labelled, branded, attacked. They prioritize people who aren't there (online people, like you and myself) over those who are.
It's especially interesting from my perspective, because in Vienna we still have some sort of KaffeeHaus-Kultur. CoffeeHouse culture. You can sit there for hours, reading your book, with a coffee and it does not matter, unless the space is really needed.
It's very common to just chat with whoever runs the place at that moment, too. A sense of familiarity is part of the job. For regulars, like myself, the coffee house turns into a second living room:
We people there started talking to each other.
When I was a teenager, many years ago, I had a coffeehouse for table-soccer. It wasn't a club, or association. It was a coffeehouse with table soccer, with gatherings of players.
...
I guess my tangent meant to point at the need for both general, or specialized, "social hubs", where regularly appearing people silently agree to, eventually, getting talked to.
Not like a club. Clubs are too much commitment, causing resistance.
You can't simplify it to "people want to hate each other".
The topical issues of today causing strife are not reconcilable when the division is "these are the people we're going to hate".
I find the community on Clubhouse understand this better than anyone (well, this is true for Reddit and HN too). Clubhouse especially though because people are bat shit crazy on there and somehow conversations happen. Itâs a hidden gem that I think the HN community would enjoy.
I haven't heard of Clubhouse being mentioned in a long time. Last time I checked, it didn't gain traction after 2021 and never heard of the app being mentioned since then.
Are there people still using the app? If so how are they making money?
Clubhouse is still around?!
That the copyright notice on their site still says "2025" probably says a lot. I was kinda expecting to find an AI pivot when I opened that landing page.
For what itâs worth, they are living a AI pivot. TOS just changed so they keep transcripts of all voice and actually pop it into an LLM to subjectively determine your karma points. They are absolutely selling audio data for fine tuning purposes imho, and they are absolutely training on all audio. Itâs a AI shovel selling company for sure.
Yes, itâs niche like Slashdot it seems. Good fun, might be worth making an HN room.
Man, talking to strangers in random places just feels socially uncalibrated to me, like I'm being retarded. The first time I across that idea was in the form of "cold approach", the idea of trying to score a date from a woman you see while out and about.
I wonder if anyone who did this had to start from a baseline of feeling this is straight up weird (I'm pretty sure it is weird in my culture).
This is very different
Most random encounters have a pretext, from smoking a cigarette to talking to the shopkeeper, or being in a queue for a long time.
Talking to a woman ( esp given that many of them are harassed from what I understand from my female friends ) without any reason to is much harder
We are living in a dictatorship of extroverts, who go out of their way (what a suprprise) to tell us that their ways are obviously better.
It's really tiresome. I am happy to have to a conversation if approached, but don't tell me I "should" do the same to others
I've had some great conversations with random strangers on public transport and in shops etc. Oddly I'm a complete introvert with quite bad social anxiety and avoid social events like work parties etc. But I like talking to strangers I'll never see again. I think it's partly because I'm not trying to make an impression and I'm not there just to socialise. So it's a bit crap for me that people are withdrawing and not engaging in random chit chat as much. It's so easy to be lonely these days.
I hate these sort of things. Like everyone is just sitting there hoping, hoping for someone to strike up a conversation with them. Oh thank god someone has started a conversation with me! /sarcasm
Respect people's boundaries please. Don't force yourself on people unless they're obviously willing participants.
People put extroversion/introversion as like this binary, permanent thing that cannot be changed. In reality I think it is a spectrum that changes throughout the day and the situation. Someone might be introverted at 8am on their commute, but a wild extrovert at 9pm in the bar. Don't assume, don't try to "help" people you know nothing about.
What's being "forced"? And what boundaries aren't being respected? If someone attempts to strike up a conversation and you're not interested, you can signal that. Or just be direct and say you don't feel like talking. Sure, that can be uncomfortable, but you can't expect humanity as a whole to repress its social nature just to spare you occasional, fleeting moments of mild discomfort. (And despite the wide spectrum of social inclinations -- I'm definitely on the introverted end -- I think it's accurate to say that humans, as a species, crave social interaction.)
In your ideal world, how would someone even signal they are a "willing participant" without talking to someone?
Because it is this "talk to anyone" thing, like if they say no you just need to keep trying because really deep down they just don't know how nice you're being by giving them a chance to talk to you.
It's supreme arrogance. Just leave people alone.
Talking to strangers without a good reason, is inpolite and border line illegal in many countries (for example recent street harassment ban in UK).
Author should know better. They seem to be well educated, and write about consent of filming.
Not everyone is interested in small "therapeutic" chitchat. I am not unpaid therapist, and I have no interest in other people problems or opinions.
I live in the UK and have no idea what 'recent street harassment ban in UK' refers to.
Talking to strangers is not 'impolite'[1], let alone 'border line illegal', in the UK.
[1]Depends on context of course. No chit-chat in public toilets, thanks.
1) Compared to the US, Brits live very socially isolated lives. You are just used to it.
2) There was a (small) government taskforce in the UK to prevent/arrest men for approaching women on the street. It backfired badly as you might expect. It was politically unpopular, yet it got enough coverage to change people's behavior but not in the way the politicians expected. Specially, amounts of SA didn't change but the number of dates did.
3) Someone is upset at this change in behavior and is trying to revert it.
4) This is someone from the leopards eating faces party complaining about having their face eaten by a leopard.
>1) Compared to the US, Brits live very socially isolated lives. You are just used to it.
Based on what evidence?
>There was a (small) government taskforce in the UK to prevent/arrest men for approaching women on the street.
Never heard of it. Do you have a reference?
OP is using the usual conservative tactic of conflating "person convicted of catcalling, stalking or other intentionally sexual behaviour" with "person talking to a woman".
I guess Iâll risk it anyway.
I am currently struggling with a deep rumination loop about events from 35 years ago; the trigger three weeks ago was completely accidental, but it was one of the biggest shocks Iâve had in decades. I can't help but think how different life would be if I had the communication skills then that I have now.
Growing up in a conservative, religious household outside the US, there was no support for slow processors, and those who didn't fit the dogma were simply told to 'shut up.' The more you were forced to shut up, the more you closed off. Since this was before the internet, self-help tools were non-existent. I really wish the coaching tools and protocols we have today had been available back then. It wouldn't have changed everything, but it would have given me the tools to manage many situations that I simply couldn't handle at the time.
And yes, I agree with the headline... talk to people, anyone, everyone. Maybe youâll get help, or maybe you just go for itâbecause regardless of any embarrassment you face now, you may find yourself proud of that courage decades later.
PS: Improved with AI