Comment by jjav
8 hours ago
> I highly recommend talking to strangers! People are lovely. Go out and try it.
Which country are you in?
I'm from a latin country and the norm is that you end up chatting about life the universe and everything with any random people you share a space with for more than one minute.
But in the USA that doesn't really fly. Talking is transactional, either a business deal is going on or shut up. I've been in the USA for a long time and as an introverted person I'm mostly ok with that, but whenever I'm back home I realize how much I miss talking to random people.
A lot of seemingly casual interactions in the US turn out to be someone trying to sell something. When that happens a 3rd time, you start to ignore random chatter from someone that seems too friendly. The salesperson tactics abuse common social conversation rules, and one ends up feeling like they are being forced to be mean and rude to an idiot. So, to avoid that, we push away chatty strangers in the United States.
Where? I've lived on the coasts, I live in the Midwest, that has not been my experience aside from anti-social persons.
It depends strongly on the city, and became more pronounced since covid.
Seattle is the worst. They call it the "seattle freeze." The San Francisco Bay Area became almost as bad in covid.
The south is still friendly. Austin is incredibly friendly with strangers. Miami has strong stranger vibe. NYC is still alive, too.
Tourist areas of large cities are like this. LinkedIn connections are like this. Other than that, people are delighted when you speak to them for the most part.
If nothing else, the nerves and flashbulb memories overwrite old nerves and flashbulb memories.
That or someone running some sort of scam or asking for money. All on the same continuum I guess. I'm always on my guard when a talkative stranger approaches me. Which is sad in a way, but experience proves it's necessary.
You may be shaping the samples you collect in a priors confirming manner.
I would not say that this happens "a lot". This is the sort of thing that one tells themselves to justify their own introversion.
Change "sales tactics" to "pickup attempt" and I think you'll find it a lot harder to dismiss it as a reason - not because it's true, but because of how much of a headache it is to get on the bad side of people who insist it's true. I'm gay (and active), but don't really present as such, and it's remarkable how often I receive, "I wish this creep would stop hitting on me/generally being an unattached male in my presence," vibes. I didn't want to believe it myself, until I noticed the markedly reduced occurrence when speaking to women who were visibly much older than I am. For women my age and younger: I'm not interested, but they think I'm interested, and that is a convo killer.
On the guy side, they usually seem too preoccupied to talk, or are moving with friends/family where interjecting as a stranger would be weird (because you either need to address the group or else you seem like you're attempting to break them off into a conversation away from that group). Though I'll give that the "too preoccupied" is sometimes merely an affect hiding, "This loser has nothing to offer me."
> But in the USA that doesn't really fly. Talking is transactional, either a business deal is going on or shut up.
This is regional within the US and obviously differs by person even then. Just remember that the people you are talking to may be the kind of people that need articles like the above to teach them how to talk to people. Their defenses go up when someone approaches them and while they are well practiced at appearing relaxed, they are not. Conversations are short because its emotionally difficult to stay in a heightened awareness state while someone is trying to pull you out of it. But you can certainly provide offramps
I think it depends on the part of the US. In my experience, being from the south, I am used to people engaging in small talk with strangers. However, working in the northeast I find people to be very transactional until you wear them down over an extended period of time haha.
In some cultures, you signal respecting someone's time by not bothering them.
In other cultures, you signal respecting someone's time by making small-talk with them.
Advice about making small talk vs. not making small talk is not really useful unless it acknowledges this cultural divide and the percentage chance a stranger falls into one culture or another.
This was also my observation after growing up in New England and then moving to Denver, Colorado. People were much more open to conversation than I was previously used to which felt like a breath of fresh air. I realized people in New England seemingly default to a “defensive” interaction mode when conversed with without a pre-shared common ground, such as a task or moment. Its quite apparent when visiting family back east.
Fellow New England -> Colorado transplant. It was pleasantly shocking for me too how much chattier and friendlier people are in Colorado. But now I've lived in Colorado long enough that when I go back to visit New England, it's shocking how cold and taciturn people are there. Conversations with strangers rarely get past "How ya doin?" "Fine and you? "Fine, thanks."
I do appreciate how direct people in the northeast tend to be, and sometimes miss that aspect of the culture.
I think a lot of it has to do with the somewhat complicated engagement protocol, if everyone assumes that nobody else wants to talk then it's easier to just keep your head down and at best nod or even avert eye contact but when someone extends a level of conversational courtesy I think people often respond in kind. My challenge is that I don't often have the impulse to break the ice but when I do and feel genuinely outgoing people tend to appreciate the chit chat even if it's just about the weather but I also have many moments of standing awkwardly in elevators silently ascending or walking down the street silently and even feeling awkward ordering food. Being able to consistently be outgoing I feel would be a net positive but I'm not sure what the trick is to just turn it on without it feeling forced.
When I visited New York City (and the US) for the first time in like 2010 I was taken a back but how much Americans like to chat randomly so this is strange to read.
I remember a random guy was chatting to me in the subway, then I got out, waiting at a crosswalk for the green, in those 15 seconds another guy starts another random conversation. In the first 2 hours of the trip I already had maybe 10 random circumstantial conversations. The whole trip I felt like if I wanted I could always be talking!
Yep. I lived long enough in the UK to thoroughly absorb their social dynamic, and the chattiness of strangers was my biggest culture shock moving back to the US. (West Coast USA, for those of you who think people here rate high on the "actually reserved" social scale.) I've been back long enough (+decade) to feel comfortable again with this level of random social interaction, but my wife, who's from the US South - twenty years on the West Coast, now - still feels like folks here are socially "cold".
Everyone here should note that The Guardian (I'm old enough to remember when it was The Manchester Guardian) is a UK newspaper, and adjust your understanding of its advice, or its necessity, accordingly.
This was my experience too. The USA is the only country I've ever been to where random strangers will strike up a conversation with me completely out of the blue, and I've travelled quite a lot.
For people whose cultures value reserve and privacy, visiting the U.S. is a study in cross-cultural dynamics and sometimes a serious test of social boundaries. Your comment reflects that. The loudness, friendliness, warmth, and (occasional) casual intrusiveness is both a reality and a stereotype. It always reminds me of this hilarious Harry & Paul (UK) sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGc3zFOFI-s
It's both regional and depends on how you are perceived.
I'm an introvert and I'm always surprised when a stranger talks to me, no matter where I am. But I make a point of always being pleasant back, no matter how I feel about it at the moment.
Sometimes it's just a couple sentences, and sometimes it's more of a conversation. It'd probably be more if I was better at conversations.
The only exception is if I feel the other person wants something from me, or they seem crazy or dangerous. I don't engage with those types.
NYC is very different in that regard from most anywhere else in the US. Random people tend to talk to each other. There’s a vague sense of “we’re all in this shit together”. Maybe it’s something to do with living on a cramped island, with no choice but to work together.
Same, from a Latin country living in Germany and it feels like two different worlds
I think this applies for most of the Europe other than south, though smaller the town more talkative the people I think, in villages with nothing to do are people more likely to be curious about the stranger or just having small talk.
I live in tourist Prague, pretty much never talking with someone other than when I see someone clearly struggling with directions in public transport and I see they go out of the tourist city center I just confirm whether they know it, most of the time* it's not what they intend to do.
*Germans being the exemption, seems they like to do whole team line grim the end to end to see the city even when it's not touristy, for these I have recommendation of some rare above the ground subway sections