I forced myself to start conversations with strangers for 14 days and stepped out of my introvert bubble
Editor’s note: To start the new year, CharlotteFive writers and staffers committed to 7-day, 14-day and 30-day challenges through January to shake up our norms and lifestyles. Other challenges included the Minimalist Game, 14 days of veganism, 7 days of classic Charlotte things, letting your fiance choose your outfits for 7 days and Whole30.
I’m deathly afraid of talking to strangers.
I don’t mean in a stranger-danger, will-this-person-go-berserk-and-stab-me? kind of way. (Although, I did worry about that briefly when I was watching “The Following” a couple of years ago.)
I mean I’m afraid of talking to strangers in the way that I feel awkward and terribly uninteresting and therefore super uncomfortable progressing deeper into a conversation beyond, “Hey, how are you?” with someone I have encountered for the very first time. I’m bad at eye contact. My gut clenches.
My problem is that I’m good at being Katie The Writer and wrapping you in a verbal list of questions that get me to know everything about you while I tell you almost nothing about me.
Can I step out of my introverted bubble and strike up a conversation with strangers? Can I get comfortable with someone I’ve just met?
I forced myself to start a conversation at least once a day for 14 days with a complete stranger. Here we go.
Day 1
The verdict: Wow, I am horrible at talking.
“Thanks for the package!” I blurt out brightly in the face of a postal worker who is descending my front steps. One of my arms is clutching a bag that I’ve just emptied of recycling, while my other arm is tangled in the leash that is attached to my dog Maisie, who is standing there clearly thinking I’m an idiot.
The postal worker seems to as well. She side-eyes my stretched-out smile while she arcs around me to the sidewalk and skeptically says, “No problem.”
I might be projecting here.
But, you see, I’m painfully introverted. Studying journalism just morphed me into a fake extrovert.
When it comes to interacting with strangers, I have trouble being Just Katie. I’ve interviewed so many interesting people for my jobs that Just Katie feels just, well, boring. I freeze up. I often don’t know what to say about myself, or what to share. I’m most comfortable with people I’ve known for a long time — old friends, coworkers, family, boyfriend. Dog.
Let’s keep practicing.
Day 2
The verdict: I’m showing vague signs of improvement.
All right, I started really small on Day 1. That was the point, ok? Now I’m focusing on conversation starters. Let’s call them pickup lines.
Today’s pickup line: “Do you go to yoga class at Fitness Connection?”
I’m standing at the crosswalk at the intersection of South Boulevard and Lexington Avenue, en route to work. I yank my earbuds out of my ears (coincidentally listening to a yoga playlist I’ve crafted on Spotify) when I spy a woman in my periphery with an orange yoga mat tucked under her arm. (This mat qualifies as legitimate friend bait, if you recall from this article.)
We actually have a full, if short, conversation about where we both practice, and how often, and the teacher that she prefers at the Dowd YMCA (because no, she does not go to yoga at Fitness Connection).
Success.
Days 3-7
The verdict: My pickup lines are actually leading to consistent conversations.
Yes, the conversations are short. But I’m actually getting to know a little bit about the people I bump into, and vice versa. Despite my terrible pickup lines.
These are the worst:
“Can she say hi!?”
I ask this of a red-haired girl walking her golden retriever. We have a helpful conversation about harness preferences, since I’m hoping to get one for Maisie. Our dogs are the same age.
“What is your name? I see you all the time.”
I utter this while pointing my finger in the face of a tall guy at Y2 Yoga, where I have just emerged, sweat dripping, from a class. We discuss our similar class schedule and mutual friends. He tells me his name (and I actually remember it).
“Are you telling the story of the power outage?”
I do believe I’m conversing with two intoxicated men here, at Lincoln’s Haberdashery, where the power has gone out one night. But this question does start an animated conversation with the cashier, a few people in line and the staff member trying to remove the cork from my wine bottle in the dark. We discuss the nature of the storm, and proper drinking conditions.
Wine at Lincoln’s Haberdashery in South End
Days 8-9
The verdict: I’m starting to pay more attention to what people say.
“That happens to me all the time.”
I turn around and say this to a blonde in my office building’s locker room when I overhear her talking about all the lint on her pants. I explain that I live an existence covered in white dog fluff, due to my shedding Pyrenees. We proceed to discuss lint rollers. Then she proceeds to talk to her friend about how tights (not thigh-highs) suck in her fat. (Her words, not mine.)
Days 10-11
The verdict: If you start a conversation, people might shock you with their openness. And it’s worth it.
“Hey, who are you with?”
I’m standing at the Belk Theater about to morph into Writer Katie and interview two cast members from “The Phantom of the Opera.” But before I do, I actually end up chatting with another writer. The kind of person who intimidates me most — I’m so convinced they’re better at this craft than me AND are also legitimately interesting people. (I’m not interesting, remember?)
The writer I talk to opens her mouth — and a floodgate of information. In five minutes I know that 2017 was a terrible year for her. She had a bad breakup and she lost her mother really suddenly. I learn we live in the same neighborhood and are both obsessed with yoga for very similar, very specific reasons. She spread her mother’s ashes in Europe, and it was hard. I learn she basically wants to be Hemingway.
I’m stunned. What if we were all such open books? We’d know so much more about the people who surround us, what they’re going through. We’d be more connected.
I friend her on Facebook later that day because I’m lame.
Days 13-14
The verdict: This has gotten so much easier.
“Oh my gosh do you happen to live in Dilworth? Your dog looks so familiar.”
This is Day 14. I’m at the dog park at Frazier Park. This is my Introvert Super Bowl. I have come to face two fears.
Fear 1: Maisie or I would will get sucked into a vortex of 30 fighting dogs and ripped to shreds in a violent and bloody demise.
Fear 2: I will have to converse with strangers while we watch our dogs play.
Shockingly, I only have to deal with Fear 2. I coax Maisie through the gate and unleash her, free to roam in all her new-harnessed glory. She just stands there. Then she starts to sniff a cute golden puppy. This is my cue.
“Oh my gosh do you happen to live in Dilworth? Your dog looks so familiar,” I say to the girl standing with the golden.
Nope, she lives in Raleigh, but her dog does have 1,700 Instagram followers.
I meet her friend, who actually does live in Charlotte.
Then, an amazing thing happens. I get into an easy conversation with two more women, one from Virginia and one from Conover, NC. The start of the conversation is so natural that I don’t even remember my lame pickup line, or lack thereof.
What I do remember is they both have pit mixes. We talk for 20 minutes before our dogs are worn out. We talk about anything — dog parks, harnesses, meeting people, what we like about this city.
Maisie has gotten her fill, so we leave. She sniffs one more dog on the way. I say hi to one more pair of people. And we drive off into the sunset. At least, I do. Maisie is passed out in the backseat .
My realizations
The more I honed in on people, the more I paid attention to details I normally miss in my everyday, rushed existence. I noticed the touches of bronze and ruby-red swirled into the black braids of the postal worker. I noticed the red vest and the tiny creases in the orange yoga mat of the woman at the South Boulevard crosswalk. I noticed how the billowing orange sweater of the red-headed girl with the golden retriever in my neighborhood matched my own orange sweater in some odd, fortuitous way.
The more I honed in on people, the more I realized my pickup lines didn’t matter. Neither did the depth or details of the conversations. Not really. It’s about connecting with people you normally might breeze by; it’s about not missing a chance to interact with someone who otherwise would be lost to you.
I felt more awake just by speaking out loud in moments I would otherwise be silent, lost in my own thoughts.
And as my boyfriend Rémy pointed out, connecting with strangers is a lost art. There are thousands of people out there you don’t have anything in common with, but you can still spend two minutes sharing an experience with them.
Rémy also accused me of only talking to these people for the sake of my challenge. He could be right, but it did nudge me in the right direction. The point of this was to step out of my introvert bubble, remember?
Which brings me to my last realization. It doesn’t matter if I’m not an interesting person, or if I just dumbly worry I’m not an interesting person (we’re all interesting in our ways). The point of human interaction is to be actively interested in other people. That’s how you learn from them, grow through them. That’s how they surprise you.
Photos: Katie Toussaint
This story was originally published January 25, 2018 at 11:00 PM with the headline "I forced myself to start conversations with strangers for 14 days and stepped out of my introvert bubble."