The big idea: why we should spend more time talking to strangers

So, if talking to strangers seems daunting to you, it might help to think that by doing so, you could give someone the gift of being seen.

Think about your new acquaintances and contacts. True, we don’t all have a continual stream of new people running through our lives, but the average person meets, electronically and physically, five times more people in a year than our parents did in similar job functions. Imagine which of your new contacts would appreciate your new social currency

... See more

The role of informal, everyday interaction—sometimes unpredictable and serendipitous—should not be underestimated. But this requires a place-based social infrastructure that encourages such interaction. Neighbourhood churches (or other places of worship), religious activities, schools, butcher shops, markets, town squares, beauty parlours, taverns,... See more

After all, cities are where people are supposed to have serendipitous encounters—as the writer and critic Jane Jacobs said, “The metropolis provides what otherwise could be given only by traveling; namely, the strange.” By comparison, the cliché goes, people become more atomized the farther they move from urban environments into the clinical, safe,... See more