Strangers. Familiarity. Two contrasting type of words. Who would you consider as a stranger? Who would you consider as someone familiar? Would they be considered as a friend? For me, a stranger is someone who I just met or someone I talked to online and never met in person. A person that is familiar is someone that I know and to become a friend, I feel the need to have a connection with him or her in some way.
Last week in my Communications course, we had to form groups with people in the class for our project. I formed a group with 3 new people. We were complete strangers and it was our first time talking to each other. But, as we talked about our majors and the year we were in, I found out that one of the girls was born in the same year as my sister. Coincidently enough, she also went to the same high school as us! I asked her if she knew my sister and she said yes and right away I felt a sense of familiarity even though I just met her. The reason was because of the connection that she knew my sister and how they were also friends. This made me feel more comfortable because she wasn’t just a random stranger anymore. This relates to James Hamblin’s article, “How to Talk to Strangers”, on his point:
“Once we consider a person known, our behaviour toward them changes entirely. We can emote and commiserate and learn and be ourselves. When it comes to knowing people, that line is still often drawn at whether you’ve spoken to a person before. If you have, you know them.”
His point gives much thought to the social aspect of people conversing. I agree with him because I feel that if we do not know someone, there is a sense of barrier that may come across. We don’t feel as comfortable talking or expressing our thoughts to people we do not know. That is why randomly going up to a stranger may be tough and uncomfortable to do and replying to a total stranger can come across as a surprise too.
