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There are things we say

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when we catch the eye of a stranger

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or a neighbor walking by.

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We say, "Hello, how are you?

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It's a beautiful day.

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How do you feel?"

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These sound kind of meaningless, right?
And, in some ways, they are.

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They have no semantic meaning.

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It doesn't matter how you are
or what the day is like.

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They have something else.

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They have social meaning.

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What we mean when we say those things is:

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I see you there.

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I'm obsessed with talking to strangers.

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I make eye contact, say hello,

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I offer help, I listen.

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I get all kinds of stories.

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About seven years ago, I started
documenting my experiences

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to try to figure out why.

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What I found was that something
really beautiful was going on.

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This is almost poetic.

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These were really profound experiences.

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They were unexpected pleasures.

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They were genuine emotional connections.

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They were liberating moments.

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So one day, I was standing on a corner
waiting for the light to change,

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which, I'm a New Yorker,

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so that means I was actually standing
in the street on the storm drain,

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as if that could get me across faster.

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And there's an old man
standing next to me.

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So he's wearing, like, a long overcoat
and sort of an old-man hat,

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and he looked like somebody from a movie.

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And he says to me,

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"Don't stand there. You might disappear."

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So this is absurd, right?

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But I did what he said.
I stepped back onto the sidewalk.

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And he smiled, and he said,

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"Good. You never know.

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I might have turned around,

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and zoop, you're gone."

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This was weird,

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and also really wonderful.

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He was so warm, and he was
so happy that he'd saved me.

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We had this little bond.

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For a minute, I felt like
my existence as a person

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had been noticed,

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and I was worth saving.

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The really sad thing is,

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in many parts of the world,

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we're raised to believe
that strangers are dangerous by default,

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that we can't trust them,
that they might hurt us.

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But most strangers aren't dangerous.

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We're uneasy around them
because we have no context.

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We don't know what their intentions are.

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So instead of using our perceptions
and making choices,

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we rely on this category of "stranger."

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I have a four-year-old.

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When I say hello to people on the street,

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she asks me why.

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She says, "Do we know them?"

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I say, "No, they're our neighbor."

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"Are they our friend?"

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"No, it's just good to be friendly."

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I think twice every time
I say that to her,

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because I mean it,
but as a woman, particularly,

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I know that not every stranger
on the street has the best intentions.

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It is good to be friendly,
and it's good to learn when not to be,

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but none of that means
we have to be afraid.

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There are two huge benefits

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to using our senses instead of our fears.

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The first one is that it liberates us.

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When you think about it,

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using perception instead of categories

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is much easier said than done.

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Categories are something our brains use.

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When it comes to people,

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it's sort of a shortcut
for learning about them.

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We see male, female, young, old,

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black, brown, white, stranger, friend,

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and we use the information in that box.

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It's quick, it's easy

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and it's a road to bias.

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And it means we're not thinking
about people as individuals.

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I know an American researcher
who travels frequently

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in Central Asia and Africa, alone.

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She's entering into towns and cities

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as a complete stranger.

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She has no bonds, no connections.

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She's a foreigner.

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Her survival strategy is this:

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get one stranger to see you
as a real, individual person.

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If you can do that, it'll help
other people see you that way, too.

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The second benefit of using our senses
has to do with intimacy.

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I know it sounds
a little counterintuitive,

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intimacy and strangers,

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but these quick interactions
can lead to a feeling

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that sociologists call
"fleeting intimacy."

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So, it's a brief experience
that has emotional resonance and meaning.

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It's the good feeling I got

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from being saved from the death trap
of the storm drain by the old man,

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or how I feel like part of a community

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when I talk to somebody
on my train on the way to work.

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Sometimes it goes further.

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Researchers have found
that people often feel more comfortable

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being honest and open
about their inner selves with strangers

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than they do with their friends
and their families --

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that they often feel
more understood by strangers.

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This gets reported in the media
with great lament.

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"Strangers communicate
better than spouses!"

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It's a good headline, right?

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I think it entirely misses the point.

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The important thing about these studies

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is just how significant
these interactions can be;

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how this special form of closeness

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gives us something we need
as much as we need our friends

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and our families.

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So how is it possible that we communicate
so well with strangers?

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There are two reasons.

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The first one is that
it's a quick interaction.

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It has no consequences.

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It's easy to be honest with someone
you're never going to see again, right?

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That makes sense.

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The second reason is where
it gets more interesting.

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We have a bias when it comes
to people we're close to.

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We expect them to understand us.

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We assume they do,

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and we expect them to read our minds.

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So imagine you're at a party,

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and you can't believe
that your friend or your spouse

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isn't picking up on it
that you want to leave early.

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And you're thinking,

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"I gave you the look."

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With a stranger, we have
to start from scratch.

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We tell the whole story,

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we explain who the people are,
how we feel about them;

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we spell out all the inside jokes.

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And guess what?

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Sometimes they do
understand us a little better.

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OK.

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So now that we know
that talking to strangers matters,

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how does it work?

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There are unwritten rules
we tend to follow.

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The rules are very different
depending on what country you're in,

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what culture you're in.

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In most parts of the US,

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the baseline expectation in public

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is that we maintain a balance
between civility and privacy.

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This is known as civil inattention.

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So, imagine two people are walking
towards each other on the street.

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They'll glance at each other
from a distance.

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That's the civility, the acknowledgment.

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And then as they get closer,
they'll look away,

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to give each other some space.

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In other cultures,

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people go to extraordinary lengths
not to interact at all.

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People from Denmark tell me

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that many Danes are so averse
to talking to strangers,

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that they would rather
miss their stop on the bus

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than say "excuse me" to someone
that they need to get around.

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Instead, there's this elaborate
shuffling of bags

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and using your body to say
that you need to get past,

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instead of using two words.

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In Egypt, I'm told,

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it's rude to ignore a stranger,

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and there's a remarkable
culture of hospitality.

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Strangers might ask each other
for a sip of water.

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Or, if you ask someone for directions,

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they're very likely
to invite you home for coffee.

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We see these unwritten rules
most clearly when they're broken,

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or when you're in a new place

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and you're trying to figure out
what the right thing to do is.

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Sometimes breaking the rules a little bit
is where the action is.

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In case it's not clear,
I really want you to do this. OK?

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So here's how it's going to go.

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Find somebody who is making eye contact.

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That's a good signal.

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The first thing is a simple smile.

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If you're passing somebody on the street
or in the hallway here, smile.

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See what happens.

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Another is triangulation.

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There's you, there's a stranger,

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there's some third thing
that you both might see and comment on,

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like a piece of public art

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or somebody preaching in the street

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or somebody wearing funny clothes.

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Give it a try.

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Make a comment about that third thing,
and see if starts a conversation.

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Another is what I call noticing.

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This is usually giving a compliment.

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I'm a big fan of noticing people's shoes.

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I'm actually not wearing
fabulous shoes right now,

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but shoes are fabulous in general.

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And they're pretty neutral
as far as giving compliments goes.

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People always want to tell you things
about their awesome shoes.

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You may have already experienced
the dogs and babies principle.

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It can be awkward
to talk to someone on the street;

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you don't know how
they're going to respond.

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But you can always talk
to their dog or their baby.

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The dog or the baby

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is a social conduit to the person,

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and you can tell by how they respond

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whether they're open to talking more.

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The last one I want to challenge you to

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is disclosure.

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This is a very vulnerable thing to do,

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and it can be very rewarding.

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So next time you're talking to a stranger

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and you feel comfortable,

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tell them something true about yourself,

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something really personal.

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You might have that experience
I talked about of feeling understood.

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Sometimes in conversation, it comes up,

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people ask me, "What does your dad do?"
or, "Where does he live?"

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And sometimes I tell them the whole truth,

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which is that he died when I was a kid.

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Always in those moments,

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they share their own experiences of loss.

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We tend to meet
disclosure with disclosure,

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even with strangers.

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So, here it is.

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When you talk to strangers,
you're making beautiful interruptions

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into the expected narrative
of your daily life

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and theirs.

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You're making unexpected connections.

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If you don't talk to strangers,
you're missing out on all of that.

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We spend a lot of time

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teaching our children about strangers.

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What would happen if we spent
more time teaching ourselves?

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We could reject all the ideas
that make us so suspicious of each other.

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We could make a space for change.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)