Talking to Strangers

Actual research shows that you should. Isn't that something?

I recently attended a talk by Nicholas Epley, a professor at the University of Chicago who does research on social connections. His groundbreaking study, conducted with Juliana Schroeder, looked at whether people were better off talking to each other on public transit. They found that yes, talking to people on the train was, on average, a good thing.

Epley and Schroeder were looking at passengers on Metra, the train system that connects Chicago to the suburbs. It’s the bourgeois train, carrying people from middle-class communities to middle-class jobs; I usually take the El, which is the train of the proletariat, moving people within Chicago neighborhoods, to the cities two airports, and connecting a small number of inner-ring suburbs. It’s always been a little rough around the edges; since the pandemic, the number of unhoused and mentally ill people who spend their days on it has increased. I get it, they have nowhere else to go, but I am always on guard. The New York City subway has a similar vibe, and a recent interaction between riders turned deadly.

I’m not going to chat up strangers on the Red Line.

Epley’s other areas of research have more application to my life, and maybe to yours, too. One study looked at whether people preferred small talk (like “How about the Cubs?” or “Are you looking forward to the warm weather this weekend?”) or deeper conversations (“When was the last time you cried in front of another person?”) when talking to someone they didn’t know.

Guess what? They preferred deeper conversation. Research participants found discussions about complex questions to be more enjoyable and more likely to lead to a lasting relationship than polite chit-chat.

I’m not going to ask a stranger at a party about when they cried in front of another person, because that’s just weird. I’m sorry, it is. But I plan to start asking people about what they are grateful for or who they would invite to a dinner party. Several years ago, the New York Times ran a list of questions to make someone fall in love with you, and they can be adapted to social situations.

So talk to strangers. Then share some good questions in the chat!

Because do you really want to take your cues from Rick Springfield?