Talking to Strangers

Because we don’t know how to talk to strangers, what do we do when things go awry with strangers? We blame the stranger.

If we were more thoughtful as a society—if we were willing to engage in some soul-searching about how we approach and make sense of strangers—Sandra Bland would not have ended up dead in a Texas jail cell.

How is it that meeting a stranger can sometimes make us worse at making sense of that person than not meeting them?

We have people struggling with their first impressions of a stranger. We have people struggling when they have months to understand a stranger. We have people struggling when they meet with someone only once, and people struggling when they return to the stranger again and again. It’s a mess.

We think we can easily see into the hearts of others based on the flimsiest of clues. We jump at the chance to judge strangers. We would never do that to ourselves, of course. We are nuanced and complex and enigmatic. But the stranger is easy. Strangers are not easy.

The issue with spies is not that there is something brilliant about them. It is that there is something wrong with us.

When we don’t know someone, or can’t communicate with them, or don’t have the time to understand them properly, we believe we can make sense of them through their behavior and demeanor.

The thing we want to learn about a stranger is fragile. If we tread carelessly, it will crumple under our feet.

We need to accept that the search to understand a stranger has real limits. We will never know the whole truth. We have to be satisfied with something short of that.

The right way to talk to strangers is with caution and humility.

When you confront the stranger, you have to ask yourself where and when you’re confronting the stranger—because those two things powerfully influence your interpretation of who the stranger is.

Don’t look at the stranger and jump to conclusions. Look at the stranger’s world.