QWhen was the last time you talked to a stranger? Not surprising, if you don’t remember: we don’t do this often. What a pity. According to recent studies, such as those conducted by psychologists Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder of the University of Chicago, talking to strangers would make people happy more than when talking to acquaintances and family members. Indeed, according to Gillian Sandstrom, Senior lecturer in Psychology of kindness at the University of Sussex, this activity would make individuals feel more optimistic and empathetic.
In a 2021 book, The Power of Strangers: The Benefits of Connecting in a Suspicious World (The Power of Strangers: The Benefits of Connecting in a Distrustful World), Joe Keohane, former publisher of Esquire magazine, reveals how fleeting interactions represent an effective survival tool, increase cognitive development, alleviating loneliness and isolation. «If we started talking to the person sitting next to us on a train – she writes – we would both be more likely to come out of it better and happier. And when we have tasted the pleasure we will want to do it again.”
Why is talking to strangers good for you?
Among the occasions that most invite intimacy, sharing a journey, whether short or long. (Getty Images)
But why would it be beneficial to start a conversation with a stranger? «For starters, because this form of dialogue promises to be simpler and easier, at least at first» he observes Camilla Pagani, social psychologist of the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies of the Cnr. The new interlocutor has the look of a child who is surprised, he doesn’t know our biography, has no temporal and biographical framework to refer to, it will not make us feel missing, defective or false if our words do not match our past. He simply welcomes our words, our point of view, “our reality” as we present it to him.”
In addition, “his ability to listen is not overwhelmed by what he already knows, or thinks he knows, about us». A privilege, compared to some friendships, in which the ability to see the other is anesthetized by a gaze that is no longer able to grasp him in his changing evolutions, but statically harnesses him in that idea that we had of him in the past.
New identities
Furthermore, approaching a stranger offers the thrill of a new beginning, as opposed to those friendships that seem to stick with us for no reason. «It can resemble a theater debut, which offers us the opportunity to experiment (with fewer inhibitions) possible versions of ourselves» he specifies Federico Zannoni, professor of general and social pedagogy at the University of Bologna which dedicated the volume to this theme The broken pendant. Spaces, forms and paths of friendship (FrancoAngeli). «And while we invent an identity from scratch, or reveal a hidden one, the stranger becomes the recipient of the narratives about ourselves that most gratify us. And which (sometimes) turn out to be more truthful than what our friends know.”
Ornella Manzi, a retired teacher, one of three hundred volunteers, tells it well Telephone Friend Italy who also this year from 10am on Christmas Eve to midnight on Boxing Day, answered the non-profit organization’s telephone to support people in difficulty. «Some call because they are alone. Others, however, find it easier to confide in a stranger, rather than in a friend or family member, their fragilities, worries, dreams., and thoughts that we have not yet confessed even to ourselves. We take their words into custody without judging them. And they let themselves go without filters.” (info: telephoneamico.it; 02 2327 2327 or 324 011 7252). «A word dies as soon as it is said, someone says. I say that only that day begins to live” says a poem by Emily Dickinson. In fact, Pagani observes, “some of us begin to live as soon as we say that word.”
A dialogue without scripts or masks
In the friendships that we consider important, sometimes there is a reality that hides, highlights Francesco Aquilar, psychotherapist, president of the Italian Association of Cognitive and Social Psychotherapy. «Arnold Lazarus, considered one of the pioneers of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy, argued that true friendship is a “communication from A to Z”, in which we tell each other everything, without hiding anything. I, however, believe that friendship is more like “communication from A to W”, in which you keep something to yourself (the X, Y and Z)”. Moreover, she specifies in the book No More Crocodile Tears (FrancoAngeli), «It is only in childhood that one believes that one can, or must, tell a friend everything. As we grow up, however, the pockets of what is left unsaid become more substantial. The important thing, however, for the friendship to remain such, is that the opacity does not overwhelm the intimacy.”
The galaxy of social media, strangers without expectations
With a stranger we start by talking about time, then about this and that, then we discover that something important unites us, or distinguishes us. And in the end, if time and confidence allow, he ends up talking about himself. In short, the other acts as a mirror to us, encourages us to look inside ourselves. «Today, personal exploration of the self is increasingly taking place in the public sphere, on social media in particular» he observes Alice Avallone, digital anthropologist.
«Online, more than for interests, passions and opinions, people seek the attention of those who listen resonate a common sensitivity and fragility, often not yet fully explored. But without entering into intimacy with the other. You touch each other for a few seconds, and that’s enough to feel part of a much larger community». With an advantage: «in digital habitats, these “weak ties” (according to a definition coined in 1973 by Mark Granovetter, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University) they do not generate expectations towards the other, as happens in a solid relationship.” Indeed, they protect us in some way (more) from possible disappointment. The end of an important friendship, on the contrary, constitutes a moment of profound internal laceration, where memories and traces of presences no longer present lead us to reconsider with different eyes the people we have been, who we are and who we will be. The writer Silvia Avallone tells it well in the book Un’Amicizia (Rizzoli): «Mourning for a finished friendship cannot be resolved. There is no way to heal it, rework it, close it and move on. He remains there, stuck in his throat, halfway between resentment and nostalgia.”
What about high school friends?
Having said this, Aquilar concludes, historical friends, “represent a resource that is difficult to replace”. Michela Murgia also writes it: «decade-long friendships are an asset that needs maintenance, because they are the source of the only thing that cannot be repeated: time. They are the ones who keep the memory of the girl or boy you were, who know the effort you made to be the woman or man you are, who remember the enthusiasm you had and what remained, the mistakes from which you you are saved by those from whom they saved you. They are not just friends: they are witnesses and accomplices. Woe not to have any».
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