How To Talk To Strangers

A stout middle-aged man carrying two plastic carrier bags and looking very much like his mother might have dressed him, approached me in a polite plaintiff tone asking,

‘Excuse me, do you have time for a conversation?’

I remember being baffled. Libraries are not a place for talking. Moreover, no one had ever asked me so plainly and directly before. For spare change, yes. For conversation, no. A librarian came to my rescue. She explained that although some people found Edward a nuisance, he was harmless and if I was to indulge him he wouldn’t bother me long and it would make his day.

The proposition struck me as endearing. Who wouldn’t want a conversation? Even if the conversation itself didn’t live up to much – mostly train times, television programmes and household pets.

Talking with a purpose

I never gave the encounter a second thought. Yet 15 years later, here I am paid to have conversations with strangers. They’re not the usual free-form exchanges beginning with the weather, covering physical ailments and gossip about mutual acquaintances.

As client research interviews, the spontaneity of subject is replaced by a clear agenda; a reason for being there and a set of topics that will ideally lead to an outcome – are they happy with the service, going to remain a loyal customer and what can be improved? There’s a topic guide to frame and direct the discussion to that end. The roles are defined too: interviewer and interviewee with little or no arbitrary switching of questioner.

Perhaps I’ve taken it for granted as my day job because it was a social event I attended that got me thinking about having better conversations. Two events actually – one piqued my interest enough to sign up for a second one the following week. It was the digital equivalent of Edward’s offer: a group called Deeper Conversations promoted via the Meetup.com forum, offering two types of conversation groups for strangers.

The first I went to was Deeper Conversations and the second Speed-Friending. Both are held in a north London pub on weekends, during the daytime. The format proves to be virtually identical except the latter costs a tenner and provides mutual friend matches afterwards, just as you’d get at a speed-dating event.

The organisers know that key to a decent conversation is the subject matter. You’re given a card with a list of questions that act as starting points. The topics vary but they’re all intended to open you up quickly and share experiences, opinions, hopes, fears and desires in a way you’d be unlikely to reveal under other circumstances. Here’s a sample, from memory:

• What lie have you been telling yourself?
• What risks are worth taking?
• What life event would you like to undo?
• What trait have you inherited from your parents?
• What book has been the most influential on your life?
• What have you created you’re most proud of?
• What are you grateful for?

You get 15 minutes to talk and when the organiser blows his whistle you wrap up and change partners, conveyor-belt-style until everyone has met.

Neil has kept his coat on, giving the impression he might bolt at any point. He fingers his long lank hair and struggles to maintain eye contact. Glancing up only momentarily, he delivers a twelve-minute monologue about the aspects of his life that constitute the ‘rocks’ like British Military Fitness, high-powered flashlights and his job at a pharmacy, followed by the gravel-sized aspects and then what constitutes mere sand. After we descend into the granules of beer preferences, he manages to ask me a question but what he wants is me to volley back a complete potted explanation of my life in one go. Not something I’m accustomed to; nor is there time and so I disappoint by commenting only on my preferred booze by occasion.

It’s obvious why Neil is here. Although he knows he needs to share some personal nuggets and to enquire into the other person’s world, his technique generates zero rapport. He gives almost no opportunity for reciprocation. On paper he’s a great bloke. In person, he’s impossible. He’s entirely missing how two-way interaction works.

By contrast, Connor irreverently dives straight in with a question about the nature of lying and whether we lie to ourselves and others. I propose that we lie for protection – sometimes for self-preservation and sometimes to protect others from harsh realities. Connor explains that he is bluntly honest with friends, that this is a key principle in life for him and indeed he has the anecdotes about people he’s told the truth to about their girlfriends which back this up.

This is what I crave: straight into a subject with no foreplay about the fucking weather or occupations. We hardly stray off topic except for a few asides which establish a bit of background about each other. The subject is lying and we crack on with analysing it and riffing off the other’s views.

Purely for not allowing a moment of the banal, Connor gets a tick on my Speed-Friend list. He’s probably going on everyone’s list: he’s got instant charisma. He has Irish charm, making self-deprecating jokes about potatoes falling out of his pockets; he locks in eye contact even while bouncing around in his seat while telling his story.

Similarly, Daniel is a natural. We talk about the differing work ethic we encounter in private and public organisations, US gambling regulation and risky investments. He seems innately interesting and it feels easy as though we could explore a hundred different subjects and waste away an afternoon quite effortlessly. We exchange opinion and are comfortable enough to quip at the other’s misfortunes. I might have known Daniel for years.

Calum and I start badly after the most influential books question when I divulge my recent reading list, BA in English Literature and love of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People only to find out that he hasn’t read a book since his GCSEs. Instead he favours Wikipedia and we just about fully recover when it turns out he has encylopedic knowledge of history subjects from ancient Chinese warfare to Oliver Cromwell and the Restoration, which rather delights me. I don’t learn his job or where he’s from or any of that but I’d happily talk to him again.

Manoj makes me feel uneasy. He sits down opposite and immediately reveals that he’s here because he’s had a train-wreck of a divorce and was so depressed he didn’t leave the house for three months. I’m all for getting to the guts quickly but this feels like a toxic start to meeting a stranger. Unless you’ve just gone through the same thing. I haven’t. It’s not helped that I randomly select a question about recent regrets in life. We pull things around a little, talking about career disappointments but never find any real common ground. Like several conversations, I’m relieved when it’s over.

Talking to Anya, Josh, Florence and others, I experience a number of ups and downs over the course of nearly a dozen meetings. My last conversation is with Philip. At five seconds in I realise this is going to be difficult because I’m too mentally drained to put effort into the conversation, and this one really needs it.

The other problem is that Philip thinks the questions are just there as a fall-back if we can’t find anything to work with. Consequently he asks me where I’m from and what I do. It’s the antithesis of why I’m here. I want to know whether he believes in freewill, whether he regrets anything, what his views are on abortion, or Brexit or anything other than discovering that he works for a retailer in their logistics department and has a pet Jack Russell.

The problem isn’t so much that I’m bored by Philip but by accounts of my own life. I’ve heard myself explain to others a million times before that I’m originally from Newcastle, grew up in Leeds and that I run a small market research business serving professional services firms. To hear that over and over again is interminably dull.

But ask me,

What thing have you recently changed your mind about?

That’s an electric shock to my nervous system because suddenly I need to think quickly in a way about a novel subject. In finding an answer I’m discovering something within myself that day-to-day is completely hidden. I realise that in getting older there are a number of things I’ve altered my views on from prison sentences to colour palettes. Where should I take the conversation? What will interest me and perhaps delight my collocutor?

This is the joy of really good conversation. You are challenged to think. It feels a little dangerous to share something with another person that puts you in a vulnerable position. A revelation pops out your mouth that you haven’t rehearsed and recited many times before; it’s much more honest and direct. That other person will judge you for it. Maybe it’s something shameful or ridiculous. But it might ring true with an experience that person has had and they’ll recognise it and it sparks a rapport between you that could never otherwise exist.

Rules for better conversations

The best encounters I have all seem to be subject-based with some personal revelation incorporated. Coming away knowing the person’s job or birth place seems to correlate with a less meaningful encounter. From the various dialogues I have, I draw a few rules:

1.    Be controversial: Express something forthright, something that sparks debate because it enlivens you. Avoiding your real opinions is just dull.

2.    Be vulnerable: Share a secret or some sort of personal information because it promotes a sense of connection that just can’t be created any other way.

3.    Be present: When we get distracted the other person can feel it and they lose that sense of a safe place to express themselves.

4.    Be expressive: Non-verbal communication matters – mainly eye contact and posture but moreover, physical movement grabs attention and injects emotion.

5.    Be focused: You need to go deep into a subject with precise language – skimming subjects is unsatisfying because you don’t reach any truth or meaning.

Of the two sessions I went to, the Deeper Conversations felt relaxed, with everyone getting into subjects they find interesting, whereas the Speed-Friending has a foreboding sense that you are being judged by the other person. (That’s because you are.) It feels a little desperate, as though you’re pitching yourself or interviewing for a job.

The Deeper Conversations session is the better of the two. The awkwardness of speed dating is absent and instead of a focus on making friends, you do your best to have a really engaging exchange of ideas no-strings-attached. If the other person doesn’t like you, so what?

At the end of the Deeper Conversations meeting, a handful of people stay on for a drink and to reflect on the experiences they’ve had. I talk to the organisers Carlton and Megan. It turns out that the group has been running for a year and mostly attracts people from the programming and technology community. There’s a heavy gender skew in favour of men. People lacking natural real-world social skills are relatively well represented.

Carlton seems like the driving force. He has a confident smile and moves among the groups with a gentle social ease. Yet he credits Megan as the real originator and organiser. Megan is warm and likeable but shy – has she created this group to satisfy a desire to improve her own social skills? It seems a superior method over approaching strangers in the local library.

Was that what Edward was up to all those years ago? Was there a note on his mirror titled Goals for the Year and a bullet list including ‘Be more confident with strangers – start one conversation each day’. I don’t think Edward was doing it consciously for self-improvement but I’d like to think that by now he’s got better.

I still struggle with small talk and will rue blurting out irrelevant commentary in lieu of valuable insight. This Deeper Conversations group is at least a training grounds for better conversation even if the learning is self-directed. It’s not quite a resolution but in 2019, I’ll keep talking to strangers.