You gotta show up … but also open up

I’m fortunate enough to live in an area with a terrific library system that does amazing free programs, including wine/cheese/chocolate tastings. Free night out with food and the chance to knock out an errand by returning library books? Yes, please!

I enlisted two friends, and we ended up at a table with a woman who immediately made clear she was there under duress.

“I didn’t even want to come,” she announced. “I nearly didn’t. But my husband said, ‘You’re always saying you want to meet more people.’”

Here’s the thing: If you’re nervous about meeting new people, you could not ask for better people to sit with than my friends and me. We take this kind of thing as a personal challenge.

“I’m so glad you decided to come, and that you sat with us!” friend RG said.

“Yeah, you hit the jackpot tonight,” friend JVM joked. “We love meeting new people.”

We made it a point to make lots of eye contact (super important to making people feel genuinely welcome). We talked only about general things, so she could join in. When it came time to get in the line, we said, “Oh, let’s go now – don’t you agree?” directly to her. Bottom line: We were trying HARD.

But apparently, not hard enough for her, because a few minutes later, we realized she had disappeared.

Me: “Uh, did that woman bail?”

JVM: “Yes, yes, she did. Wow.”

RG: “Oh honey. It’s good that you came … but you gotta open up, too.”

What is it about meeting new people, even people who are also new to a place and are being friendly and welcoming, that requires so much energy and courage? I think this is something that’s always been challenging, but now, with entertainment devices constantly on hand, it’s a skill (and I do think it’s a skill) that we rarely practice.

To initiate a conversation risks seeming annoying … or worse, weird. Everyone is focused; many are wearing ear buds.

Before smart phones, you’d end up talking to strangers out of sheer boredom – in line, on buses, while having a drink at a bar or waiting for the church service to start. You had dozens of chances each month to practice the art of small talk, of coming out of your shell enough to meet someone, maybe even make a connection. Even if you weren’t the type of person to initiate a conversation, enough other people did it that you were forced to engage.

But now, to initiate a conversation risks seeming annoying … or worse, weird. Everyone is focused; many are wearing ear buds. And fewer and fewer people are even out of their houses to begin with. Streaming movie services mean no more recommendations from strangers at the video store; food delivery means no more casual chats with the people sitting next to you. Membership in social groups, service organizations and churches is way down.

People, we are lonely. And it’s our own fault. We think it’s better to be alone, playing a game on our phones, than to talk to strangers. And that does sound better, right? I’m an extrovert who can talk to just about anyone about anything, and I never talk to strangers unless there’s a clear way to end the conversation after only a couple minutes, like in a fast-moving line.

But according to psychologists Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder, that thinking is wrong. In the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2014, they wrote about asking Chicago-area commuters on public transportation to predict which they’d enjoy more: solitude or conversation with a stranger. The commuters nearly all chose solitude, but when engaged by a stranger in conversation, they enjoyed it more than solitude.

So we’re isolating ourselves all under a mistaken belief that it’s better than talking to a stranger. This isolation is bad for our physical and mental health (and it can even impact our career opportunities and our worldview, as this New York Times article describes). Worst of all, it starts a negative cycle: The less time you spend going out and talking to strangers, the harder it seems, which means you do it less, which means you get less practice, which means it seems even harder, etc. And then you end up the person whose only friends are her kids, and they’re busy with their own lives.

That went to kind of a dark place, but you get my point.

So the moral of the story is: Make yourself go out, make yourself stay the entire time, resist the urge to use your phone as a crutch, and talk to other people. Go with a friend if it seems too overwhelming at first to do on your own, but then the two of you need to talk to people besides yourselves. Because as my friend RG said: You gotta come out, but you gotta open up, too.