Talking to Strangers Is Good For You
In many ways, The Odyssey is a story about talking to strangers. As Odysseus travels home after the Trojan War, he meets an array of new people—some hospitable, others violent. He relies on these new connections for shelter, but he also tries to get to know them, telling his own story and asking to hear theirs.
The experience of sharing so much with someone you don’t knowis rare. Many of us never speak with most of those we see around us; we truly get toknow even fewer. As the writer Joe Keohane explains in his book , this aversion is rooted in (we tend to underestimate how much we’ll like strangers—or them, us). But Keohane’s book also emphasizes a second point: Talking with strangers is good for us. The practice canbring a sense of comfort and belonging—positive emotions that we miss out on when we stay quiet. The author Kio Stark echoes this argument in , and provides . In a time characterized by , which the graphic novelist Kristen Radtke explores in , these connections are more necessary than ever.
