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Books & artsJul 10th 2021 edition

Social skills
The vital art of talking to strangers

Three books explain why it matters--and can easily be lost

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Jul 10th 2021

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Hello, Stranger. By Will Buckingham. Granta; 336 pages; PS16.99
The Power of Strangers. By Joe Keohane. Random House; 352 pages; $28.
Viking; PS16.99
Fractured. By Jon Yates. Harper North; 348 pages; $28.99 and PS20

ATTITUDES TO STRANGERS tend to follow a familiar pattern. Children
are taught never to speak to unknown grown-ups, especially those
regarded by their parents as untrustworthy. The onset of adolescence
and young adulthood brings a bursting desire to interact with all
sorts of people, particularly the kind who might not elicit family
approval. Whether the resulting encounters are sexual or social, they
confer a thrilling frisson of escape.

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Social circles generally narrow again as people find life-partners,
form households and produce offspring of their own. Time becomes
scarce; new friendships are often based on sharing the burden of
child care. Some people never recover the youthful zest for
unforeseen liaisons. Professional duties swell even as parental ones
diminish, and the inclination sags. In old age, even if curiosity and
charisma remain undimmed, frailty makes new serendipitous connections
harder to establish.

But that is not the whole story. In mid-life and beyond people can
still experience the joy of a random meeting, however short, which
somehow touches a nerve. That might involve nothing more than a
smile, or a chance remark that hits an emotional spot; or it might be
an unexpectedly deep conversation on a plane or train, a surge of
mutual understanding that is life-affirming even if the interlocutor
is never seen again. This aspect of the promise and peril of
strangers has enticed storytellers--from the rapture of "Brief
Encounter" and "Before Sunrise" to the ruin of "Strangers on a
Train". The knowledge that the exchange will be a one-off can permit
a delicious, uninhibited frankness.

In the age of covid-19 and Zoom, the chronological pattern has been
warped. Instead of their hazy possibilities and risks, strangers have
assumed an all-too-literal role as a looming source of infection.
During lockdowns they are officially to be avoided. Yet youngsters
still long, dangerously, for the ecstasy of communion, not just with
edgy individuals but anonymous crowds. People of all ages have come
to miss the human stimulation of busy high streets or trains, or the
comforting sense of fellowship in a cinema or theatre audience.

So this is an apt moment for three books about meeting strangers.
Will Buckingham has written a moving memoir of finding solace, after
the death of his life-partner, in travelling and talking in lands
such as Myanmar that are culturally distant from his native England.
Joe Keohane, an American journalist, argues that communicating
empathetically with strangers is vital and potentially life-changing.
Jon Yates, who runs a youth charity based in London, frets that deep
fissures in Western societies are making it impossible for people to
reach, even casually, between classes, religions, ethnicities and
generations.

All three authors make sweeping generalisations about the evolution
of human society, from hunter-gatherers to the age of Homer and
beyond. But they are more interesting when they reflect, using
personal experience or scientific research, on how people live and
communicate now. In different ways, they all make two separate but
related points. First, interacting meaningfully with a new person can
bring huge rewards--but it is a skill that must be cultivated and can
easily be lost. Second, the self-segregation of modern Western
societies means that, for many people, conversing with some fellow
citizens seems pointless, undesirable or outlandish. The second
problem exacerbates the first: if you consider others beyond the
pale, why make the effort to get to know them?

As both Mr Keohane and Mr Yates emphasise, in Britain and America
political divisions have ossified into tribal ones. Supporters and
opponents of Brexit live in discrete clusters; Republicans and
Democrats see each other as bad people, not fellow Americans whose
opinions happen to differ. These opposing sides have become strangers
to one another. Mr Buckingham focuses on the pleasures and pitfalls
of encounters in remote places where the stakes are lower because the
acquaintanceships are bound to be temporary--in a holiday flat-share
in Helsinki or while travelling through the Balkans. But, like the
other two, he notes that wariness of unfamiliar people is neither new
nor insuperable.

Faces look ugly when you're alone

Mr Keohane and Mr Yates offer tips on befriending strangers. Mr
Keohane describes exercises in which groups of Republicans and
Democrats were, with great difficulty, coaxed to overcome stereotypes
and see one another as rounded individuals. They were trained to ask
each other good questions and avoid name-calling. Mr Yates discusses
the case for a kind of national social service that would encourage
youngsters to mix with other groups and generations. Both have homely
micro-solutions that readers can apply in daily relations--assume the
best of others, remember that most have stories they are longing to
tell, react philosophically when a friendly approach is rebuffed.

A telling point that none of the books captures is a paradoxical one:
some of the most sophisticated forms of interaction between strangers
occur in societies that are chronically divided. Think, for example,
of rural Northern Ireland, or of parts of the former Ottoman Empire,
such as Lebanon, where residents have lived in separate communal
silos. In ways impenetrable to outsiders, the denizens of such places
develop perfect antennae for the affiliation of a stranger and adjust
their remarks accordingly. The ensuing exchanges occur within
well-understood parameters--including a sense that social categories
are resilient and pleasantries will not change them. But tact allows
people from antagonistic camps to have amicable encounters and
transactions.

All three authors are inclined to overstate the ability of brief
interactions to stave off conflict. Yet at least this much is true: a
capacity to engage with new people in civilised, humane and
meaningful ways is a necessary condition for social peace, even if it
is not a sufficient one. That points up a half-hidden cost of
covid-19. Children educated on screen; teenagers bouncing off the
walls; adults working at home; lonely pensioners: more or less
everyone's social skills have been atrophying, with consequences not
only for individuals but, perhaps, for the fabric of society.

As lockdowns lift, people are now stumbling back into a world of
accidental collisions, some eagerly, some queasily, most with an odd
sensation of novelty after a year of hibernation. The lesson of these
books is that the easing of restrictions is not just a coveted
opportunity to reconnect with those you love and resemble. It also
restores a freedom, long taken for granted even if little used, to
come to know the profoundly different. #

This article appeared in the Books & arts section of the print
edition under the headline "The comfort of strangers"

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