Today I’m here to say it so that you don’t have to: your mother was wrong. It is, in fact, ok to talk to strangers. In fact, I think you should be doing it more!
I was recently telling friend about meeting up with a fellow twitterer (nope, still can’t say ‘tweep’) to have coffee. I knew we had similar interests and seemed to value similar things in life so I decided that we should be friends. (I was right!)
He shook his head and said he admired that I would meet up with someone I didn’t really know because there was a scant possibility we’d turn out to be kindreds. Which made me think: why in the world do I feel the need to do that? I’ve come to a few conclusions.
1.) Making friends as an adult is hard, you guys. Gone are the days of reaching for the same purple crayon in Mrs. Dove’s class and just knowing you’d be BFFs with this girl 4-eva.
“You like red red lipstick? I like red lipstick! Aren’t we the coolest?” probably wouldn’t go over well in a board room. But, in the age of the internet, it is really easy to find like-minded people. Blogland, twitter, and instagram have made the world a much smaller place. If you’d told me in high school that in ten years I’d be bonding with someone that lives 700 miles away over our favorite screwball comedies, I would have thought you were crazy. But guess what? That totally happened to me a month ago. A week before that I had lunch with a lady I’d met at an underground supper club, and we talked about everything from bespoke clothes to our attitudes about family.
Cultivate friends that share your interests regardless of where you find them! Odds are that if you have one thing in common, there are others. And having a diverse group can give you a lot of insight into different ways of life–and, in the age of the internet, different ways of communicating.
2.) I’m a story collector. Here’s the thing: everyone is human (with the exception of maybe Martha and Oprah). We all have a story. We all have a ‘thing’ we like to veg out on after work be it binge-watching netflix, reading Jane Austen, or having sex. (If you’re lucky: 2 out of 3) So this is your reminder that it’s totally worth looking up from your phone to talk to people in the elevator.
Let me tell you a story: When I first started with my company, I was a freelance photo-editor. One day, I hopped on the elevator with a well-dressed man and started up a conversation about how fabulous his sport coat was. It was patterned with beautiful stitching, and he was wearing a crisp white linen pocket square with a bright lavender trim–perfection. So we talked about menswear for a few minutes and then went our separate ways. At least a month later, a friend was giving my parents and me a tour of the building. I’d just been hired full-time as a designer and had never seen the 4th floor. As we walked past the biggest office, I noticed that the sharply dressed elevator man that had been so nice was Ken Lowe, the CEO of the company and the man who started HGTV.
You never know who you’re going to meet. Not everyone will be nice. Not everyone will end up a friend. But each one has an interesting story and something worth hearing. Sometimes we’re so distracted by our own mess or trying to play it cool in the corporate culture that we forget life is for the sharing! Talk to someone new, and listen to their story.
3.) I think my job on earth is to love people. I am (*shudders*) almost 30, and the only calling/direction/mission I am absolutely certain of, other than my calling to be a partner to James, is that I am here on Earth to love people. (I don’t always do a good job at that. Please see previous statement about humanity… Me ≠ Not Oprah.) But I do know for certain that making it your mission to value the people around you on this earth is one of the only missions worth pursuing. Tell someone if they look beautiful. Ask about their weekend and actually care about the answer. Listen to their story. Put love out into the world. Make a new friend. Talk to strangers.
