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Talking to strangers is great. Third places are great. Contriving a way to talk to a stranger such that your goal is to force them so far outside of their comf

Talking to strangers is great. Third places are great. Contriving a way to talk to a stranger such that your goal is to force them so far outside of their comfort zone that they assertively reject you is not great. These are not at all the same thing. I'm not saying don't talk to strangers. I'm saying don't use unwitting strangers in your contrived boundary pushing scenarios for your own psychological growth at the expense of their comfort and consent. You wouldn't walk around putting spiders on people and tell them, "It's cool, bro, I'm just doing spider therapy."

openknot 5y ago
There is nuance in my view, as I believe that the action matters more than the intent. Putting spiders on people is immoral because it causes psychological distress and potential harm due to spider bites. However, other behaviors are far more reasonable (e.g. asking for their newspaper, for a few dollars, or for a food sample from, say, an ice cream store). In isolation, these other behaviors sound perfectly reasonable in other contexts. However, I agree with you for some of the other examples in the article (e.g. asking to try on someone's shoes or someone's sunglasses) wouldn't be reasonable or useful in other contexts.