Talk to five strangers.
Above is a picture I took during my evening commute. Notice how heads are forward, cell phones are out. and nobody is saying a word to one another. I sit this a crowded train twice a day going to and from my office in center city Philadelphia, and rarely do I exchange more than a whispered “excuse me” to someone in passing. A few days ago, I sat shoulder to shoulder in between two business men who spent the entire commute on their Blackberrys sending emails to colleagues, clients, friends, etc., never once looking up to acknowledge the community of people that they were also present on the train. I was guilty of the same thing, as I checked facebook and tweeted my thoughts through my iPhone, but I couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that every person on the rain was having a conversation, just not with one another. It was dead quiet, the silence only broken by intermittent shouts by the conductor as he announced the next stop. Why do we feel so uncomfortable speaking to people we don’t know, yet are willing to post such personal information on so many social networks that are accessible on a global scale?
I tested my comfort zone the other night out of pure curiosity and a craving for change. A woman sitting in front of me was fumbling her belongings and looking for a lost glove that had slipped beneath her seat when the train was stopped at her station. She knew she only had a certain amount of time to exit the train before it would start moving again. Unfortunately, she wasn’t quick enough in her departure. She found her glove a few seconds after the train had started moving, but was helpless. She looked around at the other people in the car, not saying anything, but really asking “did anybody notice what just happened to me”. Well, I did. Her goal was to make her distress noticed by the other passengers, (unnecessary exhales, head shakes, letting her hands fall hard in her lap as she angrily waited for the train to stop again. At my stop.
The woman was the first one off the train when it stopped in Malvern, but looked like a lost puppy as soon as her feet touched ground on the platform. She began asking, “Does anyone live near Paoli?” She needed a ride. Not reluctantly, I offered. It was an opportunity for me to break the silence that I had been observing during my daily commutes and to learn something about myself and another individual. I offered to drive her to Paoli so that she could get in her car and drive home, wherever that may be.
It was a bit of an awkward moment as we walked across the snowy parking lot and into my car, only to find ourselves on another commute with another stranger sitting side by side. Most of our drive together was filled with her complaints about the Septa transit system and a flattering amount of “thank you’s”, but I wasn’t expecting a life changing conversation to occur in the 5 minutes it took to drive to Paoli. By the time I ran out of different ways to say “you’re welcome”, we had arrived at the parking lot where her car was. She got out, thanked me one more time, and went on her way.
I think that as a society we don’t expect people go out of their way to talk to somebody they don’t know, especially if nothing is in it for them. In this situation, my accomplishment was that I met someone new, and I had established a familiarity a personal connection to a situation that I face every day (a crowded Septa train). I think that pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones socially is the first step in realizing how easy it is to do things that we thought we might never do. I encourage every one of you to try this social experiment. Next time you find yourself standing or sitting uncomfortably close to someone you don’t know, don’t reach for your cell phone and read old text messages or emails or check the time. Talk to them. It’s the first step you can take in building the confidence you need to create the lifestyle you’ve always wanted.
Posted on January 14, 2011
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