8 ms·

I don't remember any time in my life where it ever felt normal to me to randomly talk to strangers. I went to London when I was a teenager and was made uncomfor

• haaz 5mo ago
  as someone who enjoys talking to strangers, while it is less common in some countries like China, and big cities in most countries, people tend to react mostly the same.
• dav43 5mo ago
  My take, is that this effect has removed a lot of the micro communications we make - not necessarily random conversations. It’s taken away random moments that may trigger a short small conversation with strangers. In part it’s taking away the shared experience in public and making it “my” experience.
  • garrickvanburen 5mo ago
    Whether grocery shopping or an endurance running event (5K+) those with any kind of headphones in are simply less aware of the people trying to get around them.
    • bombcar 5mo ago
      I heard they're thinking of putting cameras in the AirPods - so we'll just add collision avoidance (and backup alarms).
    • skywhopper 5mo ago
      The folks without earbuds who park their grocery carts diagonally across the aisle while standing in the remaining empty space disagree with you.
  • mlinhares 5mo ago
    Completely anecdotal story, me and a friend had completely different experiences going to Portugal. We're both Brazilians so language, food, culture aren't barriers, he's very talkative and would joke and try to interact with random people in the street or restaurants. He had a terrible experience, hated the country, vowed to never come back, said he wasn't welcomed anywhere, people were rude, even waitresses. I'm more of a "talk when talk is needed" person but still social. i don't really interact with strangers in the street and I assume business social interactions (like restaurants) are just that, business, so I'm polite but i'm not going to crack a joke with someone i've never seen before and will likely never see again. My experience was the complete opposite, loved Portugal, would easily move there if salaries weren't shit, people were nice, i felt welcomed anywhere i went, might have been the only place outside of Brazil i have really felt at home. I think its important to NOT BE RUDE with the random people you meet in the street but I also see no reason so strike a conversation with them. If I happen to see something that picks up my interest, like a band shirt, book i like or something like that, i might bring it up if we're going to stay in the same place for long, but starting a conversation out of nowhere just isn't a thing for me.
  • saghm 5mo ago
    Sure, but when the only reason I had those random moments with strangers were because they wanted them, and refusing to engage is considered "rude", I'd argue that it already was just someone else's "my" experience before, just "shared" because of societal peer pressure. What changed is that now I have a way to actually assert my boundaries without being the rude one.
    • brailsafe 5mo ago
      I think it's a mistake to conflate passive signaling with asserting oneself, and whether you like the interaction you might have otherwise had or not (as long as it's not clearly harassment or something) it would be rude to ignore people in public whether that rudeness is delegated to technology or not. It's just another way of turning up one's nose, and it's a gross way to operate imo. If you don't like the people you'd interact with, it seems to me like it should be a personal goal to find a place to work or live that's more palatable from that perspective. If you go about life preferring to pre-emptively refuse interaction with people passively, I'm not aware of a better word than "rude".
      • skywhopper 5mo ago
        Wow, it’s wild that you think you have a right to the attention of strangers with whom you have no business. How is it rude to wish to go about one’s day unbothered?
        • CosmicShadow 5mo ago
          I think if you are in public, you can't expect to be in private. You can try, but it obviously doesn't always work and we are exposed to all types when out of the house.
          • jnovek 5mo ago
            This has nothing to do with expectation of privacy. Private setting or public setting, it’s rude to bother people who are busy.
• sanswork 5mo ago
  My mom was one of those people that talked to people everywhere we went and seemed to know someone everywhere too. As a very shy kid I was constantly mortified but I had the startling realisation several years back that I'm that person now just starting conversations all over the place. Oddly enough seeing your comment I think the change happened when I moved to England in my late teens but I didn't recognise it until my 30s. I do wear my airpods a lot on walks these days but I always silence them as I approach people and regularly take them out if it seems like a conversation is about to start.
• coldtea 5mo ago
  This is common experience also in ND vs NT differences.
• fundad 5mo ago
  Agreed. These people seem to be panicking that our precious society is suffering because of choices people are making for themselves when that’s just what society is. If they benefit from talking to more people, go ahead and enjoy the benefits. They aren’t owed anything. I’ll talk to strangers when it makes me feel good. But most of the time I try avoid inviting weirdos to complain about minorities or marginalized people from someone who has driven away anyone close to them.
  • basisword 5mo ago
    >> I try avoid inviting weirdos to complain about minorities or marginalized people from someone who has driven away anyone close to them. I would suggest that it's your avoidance of talking to strangers that makes you think this is how a lot of them think. And it kind of proves the point that society can suffer because of it. If you went out tomorrow and talked to 100 random strangers for 10mins I'd be surprised if any of them complained about minorities.
    • XorNot 5mo ago
      That is statistically unlikely. Almost everyone has a "racist uncle" type story and that's what, out of 10 people in your family tops? Chances are at least 20 of them would.
      • BoingBoomTschak 5mo ago
        Most of the racist uncles don't use that as first subject with complete strangers, that's more of a family thing.
      • basisword 5mo ago
        >> Almost everyone has a "racist uncle" type story IRL I've never met one real person that has a 'racist uncle'.
    • Natfan 5mo ago
      check out some vox populi, you would be surprised
• exmadscientist 5mo ago
  Talking to strangers is a skill. You can practice it! I've made a point of trying to practice, albeit halfheartedly, and even though it's difficult for me, because I like it when other people try to talk to me. Earbuds stop this practice dead in its tracks. You can't deny that.
  • xquce 5mo ago
    Agree with the first part, very important! Not the second, however. I joined my local fitness gym some months ago and use it to connect to people in the small town I moved to. Almost every time I'm there I manage to chat to someone briefly, and 50% of them have earpods in. Most of them now look up and greet me when we pass and multiple have up to me on other days to chat afterwards. It's a skill and part of that skill is being able to give people an out of the chat if they don't feel for it, not interrupting at a bad time (mid set in a gym setting). My starter is usually a quick question with a "thank you so much, I'm new here" and if they reach for earpods to put back as they say you welcome, perfect you don't keep going. For the ones who want to chat keep them off and respond or ask something in return. So headphones/earpods can be a barrier but for me it's a useful barrier and a clear signal, which helps both parties.
  • norome 5mo ago
    I just pretend I haven't noticed they have earbuds in and start talking to them. Virtually everyone seems happy to have an interaction, I get the feeling people are a bit starved for random friendly contact.
    • steve1977 5mo ago
      I would get very irritated by such behavior. One reason I wear earbuds is to signal that I don't want to get talked to.
      • GJim 5mo ago
        Have you tried simply telling people you don't want to talk? "Sorry mate, I'm reading" is hardly difficult.
• basisword 5mo ago
  I definitely think it's generational. Every person I know over 50 could talk to a brick wall for hours. The people I know 30-40 it's a struggle for at least half of them. Under 30 and it gets much worse. Even the older introverted people I know, who I would characterise as quiet, would find it really rude to get in a taxi and not chat to the driver for the duration of the journey. With people doing their entire careers remotely now I can only see this shift happening faster and more intensely. Small talk is a skill like any other and I think it's a sad skill to lose on a societal level. And I say this as a serious introvert that doesn't love to make small talk. Nine times out of ten, when I do make the effort to e.g. talk to a taxi driver I come away happier.
  • AaronAPU 5mo ago
    I’ve noticed the age gradient as well. It’s hard to miss.
• bsder 5mo ago
  It's one thing to isolate against strangers in a subway. It's another thing to be goddamn oblivious in a shared space like a grocery store--to take a random (not) example. It's getting to the point that I have to body up to people to get them to take notice that they're blocking a half dozen of us. I also do agree with the comment that airpods do seem to get in the way of the most basic of social etiquette. Simple "please" and "thank you" are increasingly rare since you can't recognize the cues when your ears are full of something else.
• saghm 5mo ago
  As someone who is often pretty introverted, I feel like wireless earbuds just give me a way to act like I already wanted to with less friction. I pretty rarely want to talk to random strangers, not because I have anything against them, but because I just find it takes a lot of energy for me to do so (probably not in small part from having to replicate a lot of what comes naturally from others in terms of social signal reading with extra effort). People seem to be a lot less likely to randomly initiate conversations with me when I'm out in public with my earbuds on, and that saves me from having to decide between feeling even more tired after going out or the awkwardness of trying to cut off the conversation short to avoid spending energy on it.
  • DANmode 5mo ago
    This comment made me think of AirPods usage like eye-glasses usage.
• jasonfarnon 5mo ago
  Well, what culture are you saying patterns like you?
• wenc 5mo ago
  As someone from Chicago (actual Chicago, south side, not the suburbs), randomly talking to strangers is what we do. We're talking to strangers at the bus stop, at the grocery check out, or just wherever. It's just phatic conversation, nothing needs to come of it. Chicagoans aren't just friendly, they actually love the art of the conversation -- every conversation is a chance to put in the reps. But the minute you step into the suburbs, this habit disappears.
  • brailsafe 5mo ago
    > But the minute you step into the suburbs, this habit disappears. This is exactly the feeling I get in the suburbs of most places, and I think the nature of car-centric suburbs serves as a decent analogy for the Airpodsification of otherwise more urban areas. Suburbanites want their palace that they can tightly control, and it rarely matters where it is as long as they can drive to anywhere they need to go, but they don't really like people and it feels like a deeply antisocial liminal space. There's rarely any specific reason anyone would want to be there, and even if they did, they'd have to drive, and if they chose not to, people there use their cars as tools for avoiding interactions with strangers. You wake up, get in your motorized comfort bubble / killing machine, and then drive from point A to B and then back to Point A. If you wanted to go hangout, oftentimes the act of driving that you've chosen sucks all that time away anyway. Drivers then get dogs so they have some sort of excuse to interact with other people who have dogs, or kids or whatever. Then if they're lucky, they wake up one day and realize they don't see any real friends that aren't their immediate neighbors anymore, and they've lost the ability to understand how to meet people outside of work. Their old friends didn't come out for that bbq because it's dead boring and the bbq master is the only one that doesn't have a commute back. The bar in their basement sits empty because it turns out people actually want to go to the pub instead of sitting in the basement. The novelty was never the drinking itself, but the feeling of coming together in the same space and place as other people hanging out having a good time.
    • throwaway2037 5mo ago
      > Suburbanites want their palace that they can tightly control Don't rich people do the same in big cities? That has been my experience. They live in enormous apartments or private homes and drive everywhere. The richest have a personal driver and assistant to do all the chores in their life. The difference with all the other people in that big city: They cannot afford to do the same. The suburbs allows the middle class a chance to get that (some) level of control that they can afford.
• DANmode 5mo ago
  > And I'm not an introvert! Consider that you may be! You’re just surrounded by other people who are also introverted to the point you don’t stand out to yourself. I’ve driven almost 4000 people home from the airport. It’s almost annoyingly ubiquitous for people to chat up the driver.
  • fragmede 5mo ago
    If I didn't want to talk to a person, I'd just take a Waymo.
    • Cockbrand 5mo ago
      This may not always be an option for the somewhat more than 8 billion people who don't live in areas served by Waymo.
      • fragmede 5mo ago
        How long do you think that's going to be true? The other "gotcha" is that some 26 percent of humans aren't on the Internet. I'm sorry, the guidelines state that we should assume the strongest possible argument. What part of the world could possibly reject the onslaught of an American advertising campaign? If you don't have TVs to see our ads on, well give them to ya!
• ErroneousBosh 5mo ago
  > I don't remember any time in my life where it ever felt normal to me to randomly talk to strangers > And I'm not an introvert! See that's interesting, because I *am* an introvert, but I'm quite happy to sit and talk to strangers. I don't mind it at all. One of the few cultural similarities that I feel like London has with Scotland (where I live) is that you can just talk to people. People will talk. If you go to Glasgow and you ask for directions, chances are that the person you ask will walk with you to where you're going and point out good places to eat and interesting things to see along the way. Boston people have just learned this in a big way. My son is even more so, and at not-quite-six he already appears to know most of the people in the town of 14,000 people where we live, how their farms are doing, how are the cows, what weight of potatoes are they getting per hectare, what prices they're getting at market, how they're getting on with that gearbox problem with the van. It takes about an hour to walk the mile or so back from school because he's got to talk to all the old guys and ask how they're doing. Social Networking at its finest. I suspect he won't be stuck for a job when he's older.
  • SyneRyder 5mo ago
    That's strange to me that you mention London as being similar to Glasgow. I've not had the chance to visit either, but my go-to on this topic has always been this faux news story on the Mash Report: Northener Terrifies Londoners By Saying "Hello" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YxLiLFjYKc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YxLiLFjYKc I hadn't noticed it before, but they even specifically mention the use of headphones as a defense mechanism near the end.
    • __alias 5mo ago
      Yeah the most unbelievable part of this is people randomly chatting in London. I live in London, and I remember flying to Ireland at some point, and I was seated next to an Irish lady returning home from holiday who sparked up a conversation. My initial reaction was "Why the fuck are you talking to me?" because I had lived in London so long I was thrown off by a random person sparking conversation. But turns out she was just a lovely Irish lady flying from from holiday
    • 5mo ago
• microtherion 5mo ago
  Yes, I experienced this a number of times in my life. Growing up in a small Swiss village I wasn’t born in, I had to learn that you basically greeted everybody you passed in the road, under the assumption that you knew them or were supposed to know them (more conversations were not needed). Moving to a large Swiss village, I had to learn that saying hi to random strangers was considered weird at best. First time I visited Southern California, I was very uncomfortable with strangers striking up random conversations. Later in the trip in San Franciso, I felt that the slightly toned down form of this habit was more comfortable for me. Moving back to Switzerland after having lived in CA for a few years, I had to relearn old habits.
  • psp99 5mo ago
    grüezi!
  • Anthony-G 5mo ago
    Similar experience here. I grew up in rural Ireland in the 80s where you said hello to everyone but had a culture shock when I moved to Dublin for college. I quickly realised that you don’t greet everyone. I put it down to a being a matter of scale: in the countryside, it’s easy to say hello to everyone when you’ll usually encounter only a small number of people. It’d be impossible to say hello to everyone in a big city. I still say hi to people when doing things like hiking a trail that’s off the beaten track: we’re sharing a similar experience and have that one thing in common. If it’s a popular trail or busy weekend, it’s more akin to being in a large town where you don’t say hello. Another rural-urban division in Ireland is that in the countryside, car drivers greet oncoming drivers – whether they know each other or not – by subtly raising a finger or two while keeping their hands on the steering wheel. Since the 80/90s, this custom has been dying out in the counties near Dublin but I still see it in the West of Ireland. A few years ago, we were holidaying in West Cork and my wife was driving but hadn’t realised we were being greeted by the locals. As a Dubliner, she’d never even heard of this practice. Edit: By the way, I just noticed your username. Seeing that you’re from Switzerland, I was wondering if it’s a reference to the Celtic Frost album?
    • donohoe 5mo ago
• Brajeshwar 5mo ago
  I’ve strange news from the business world. That ability to talk to strangers and be conversational with various topics is actually making him a rather successful boss/business-person. Remember, not just talking, but the far better one is the ability to listen, and take genuine curiosity in the other person’s stories. I learned, and am still learning, to start with very subtle conversations in contextual proximity to the person without shocking/surprising them. And then, I mostly try to listen more and try to guide them to talk more. You will be surprised at how many a lot are eager to talk to someone, if they are being listented to.
  • wolvoleo 5mo ago
    I'm sure that's true but not everyone is cut out to be a "business-person". I certainly am not. Same with boss, I'm not a team player at all. I don't mind small talk sometimes but there has to be some kind of common ground. For example with conservative family-first suit types I have nothing to talk about and it feels awkward to make conversation, but with the leather/mesh/blue hair alt/goth types I can talk for hors.
    • psp99 5mo ago
      Assuming you have nothing in common with someone because of how they dress is just prejudice with better aesthetics :/ The suit guy probably has more interesting stories than you'd expect if you gave him thirty seconds.
      • wolvoleo 5mo ago
        If someone wears a suit they have a reason for it, it's not something people do because they like the feel of it. Because they're really restrictive, expensive and feel horrible. They do it to impress others or to fit in in business. Or when they're trying to sell something. I'm more comfortable among other outliers.
        • goodmythical 5mo ago
          You think the green haired folks are doing it because bleaching and dyeing their hair is just super duper fun? They're doing it for the same reasons: attention, approval, to fit in with their peers, trying to sell their identity to their peers.
• csomar 5mo ago
  The trick to talking to strangers, in my experience, is to find an opportune moment where you have a reason to talk to them (ie: you are both looking at the same departure timetable and you ask about a particular train/flight). The response will determine whether the stranger is open to carrying on a conversation. Of course, if their presence in the shared space is short, this makes it harder as these opportunities are not always present. Smoking is probably the best lubricant (ie: borrowing a lighter, asking about a brand/vape, etc.) and people when they smoke are usually more open to strike a conversation. That's not an endorsement of smoking (and I've quit very recently).
• embedding-shape 5mo ago
  > I don't remember any time in my life where it ever felt normal to me to randomly talk to strangers. [...] And I'm not an introvert! Life's so interesting sometimes! I consider myself an introvert, and I don't remember any point in time where it ever felt abnormal to talk randomly to the humans ("strangers") around you, regardless if you know them or not. We're both humans, why not see who the other one right next to you are? :) Maybe I'm just "too curious". It was kind of confusing growing up in Sweden, where most people don't share this idea, so of course it felt really isolating when almost zero strangers actually engage even a tiny bit. Luckily, I figured out I lived in the wrong country relatively quick, and now live in a country (Spain) much more aligned with my own mindset, and having the time of my life chatting with everyone and everything, and they even respond back!
  • 9dev 5mo ago
    why do you consider yourself an introvert if you enjoy chatting with everyone and everything?
    • poncho_romero 5mo ago
      I fit this description too. I consider myself an introvert (that is, more introverted than extroverted; very few people are exclusively one or the other) because I need to be alone to recharge. When my "social battery" is full, I eagerly start conversations with strangers, and even when it is drained I'm comfortable talking to people, though I might not desire to.
      • littlexsparkee 5mo ago
        It all depends on the subject - I can talk about cooking, climate change, collapse, film for hours. As for sports, gossip, celebrities, I clam up. Ditto for any talk that's status seeking or not curious and bi-directional.
    • ptmcc 5mo ago
      Introvert doesn't mean one doesn't enjoy socializing, just that one needs quiet down time to recharge from it. Extroverts tend to be energized by socialization. It's also not always so cleanly binary, either. I really hate that introversion gets conflated with social anxiety or misanthropy on the internet.
• bambax 5mo ago
  I don't like talking to strangers and I would consider myself rather introvert, although not extremely (I'm more of a misanthropist, maybe). That said, talking to strangers is really quite easy; I do it sometimes, esp. to entertain my friends while walking on a busy street. It's quite fun. It can happen that you plunge into deep conversations too, with someone you met just seconds ago!
• datsci_est_2015 5mo ago
  Technology and culture evolve together - I don’t think it’s a dichotomy. Teenagers today are probably more likely to share your disinclination towards social interaction because they grew up during a time when AirPods are so ubiquitous.
• deleted 5mo ago
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