The Art of Manliness - #502： Why You Should Talk to Strangers

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast talking to new

00:00:11.880 people can lead to making new connections and learning interesting things and simply makes

00:00:15.600 both you and the person you talk with happier yet many of us have a very difficult time striking up

00:00:20.040 conversation with strangers why is this i guess they has done studies to find out her name is

00:00:24.060 jillian sandstrom and she's a professor of social psychology at the university of essex jillian's

00:00:28.180 research has explored both why people have such a hard time talking to strangers and why it's

00:00:32.000 beneficial to do so today we dig into common barriers to talking to new people including the

00:00:36.300 liking gap where we believe people find this less interesting than they really do we then discuss

00:00:40.440 the benefits of talking to strangers which go both for introverts and extroverts and jillian's best

00:00:45.020 tips for getting better at it after the show's over check out the show notes at aom.is talk to strangers

00:00:58.180 all right jillian sandstrom welcome to the show thanks for having me so you are a psychologist

00:01:05.760 and you've done a lot of research on the topic of talking with strangers how did that happen

00:01:11.480 a bit of a long story but uh i started doing a master's degree in psychology and it had nothing

00:01:18.180 to do with this topic and i had a research lab in one building on campus and my supervisor's office

00:01:24.460 was in a different building and so it was a bit of a different distance between the two buildings

00:01:29.540 and whenever i walked that route i passed a hot dog stand and there was a lady who worked at the hot

00:01:36.580 dog stand and i don't know if i ever spoke to her but somehow we developed this relationship where

00:01:42.020 i would smile we would smell at each other and say hi every time i passed by and it really made me

00:01:47.380 feel like i belonged on campus you know i felt like a bit of an imposter as many of us do

00:01:52.160 taking on a master's degree and just seeing her there and having this acknowledgement that she

00:01:57.780 knew who i was and i knew who she was just made me feel really good and i thought okay is this just

00:02:03.240 me or is this actually a thing and so that's what i decided to look at for my phd but a little bit

00:02:10.140 longer story than that because my dad is sort of the king of talking to strangers he's been doing it

00:02:16.020 i've seen him do it my whole life my mom too but especially my dad and he seems to have a compulsion

00:02:21.200 and he he just loves it he just loves talking to people and learning about them and it seems so

00:02:26.080 easy to him and so that was sort of an inspiration as well i never this is the first time i heard a

00:02:31.380 hot dog stand was the start of yeah of research it's a true story yeah no it's really cool well so

00:02:38.360 you said your dad had like this compulsion to talk with strangers but for many people talking to

00:02:44.400 strangers is like something they're uncomfortable with and some of them even have a fear of it in your

00:02:48.860 research that you've done have you figured out like what are why many people are uncomfortable

00:02:53.260 with talking with strangers yeah i think people are uncomfortable with a lot of different things

00:02:58.700 and and so part of it might just be sort of evolutionarily speaking people had to worry about

00:03:05.740 other people and worrying are other people going to hurt me we also have this sort of fundamental

00:03:10.680 need to belong you know it really mattered if we were sort of kicked out of our group you know

00:03:15.840 thousands of years ago that basically meant you were going to die so you cannot you need to belong

00:03:21.580 and so i think we still fear rejection from other people it's a really strong need to belong so we have

00:03:28.620 all these things going around in our heads and we're even taught to be afraid of strangers right

00:03:32.420 like when we're kids we're told you know stranger danger you know you don't want to talk to other people

00:03:37.380 and i think part of it is just you never know what they're thinking do you i mean i i feel like i've

00:03:43.840 talked to a lot of people on the bus and i feel like they kind of go through these phases there i

00:03:49.320 i'm imagining it of course i don't know for sure this is what they're thinking but i think they're

00:03:53.220 thinking first do i know you because if i'm talking to them you know i must know them or why would i be

00:03:58.340 doing it right and then when they get past that and they think oh actually i don't know you

00:04:02.320 i think the next thought is are you a weirdo and then usually we get past that and they realize i'm

00:04:08.560 just being friendly and everything goes smoothly but i think the fears come from we don't know what

00:04:13.540 the other person is thinking people don't know what my intentions are and talking to them right

00:04:18.320 right and yeah so i've been looking at a lot of just trying to understand exactly what are people

00:04:23.160 worried about and there's so many things people endorse all sorts of reasons that i present to them

00:04:28.720 so people are worried about what they might do during a conversation so they're worried that they

00:04:33.020 might talk too much or talk too little or say the wrong thing people are worried about what the other

00:04:38.480 person might do they're worried about how they might feel and how the other person might feel so worried

00:04:43.320 about being bored or uncomfortable or just not being understood people are worried that they don't know

00:04:49.240 how to keep a conversation going and they worry that it might just not be very interesting or

00:04:54.520 meaningful might just be kind of awkward small talk which a lot of us really hate so we have all these

00:05:00.140 thoughts going through our head that just sort of turn it into this giant buzz of confusion

00:05:05.380 right and you also talk about in your research too that you mentioned right there that's the whole

00:05:11.340 stranger danger right so the fear of talking to strangers there's a cultural component right it's

00:05:16.820 like you grow up hearing don't talk to strangers because that's bad but i mean are there some cultures

00:05:21.460 where they actually encourage that yeah i mean different cultures have different different norms and

00:05:26.960 even within the same culture different places or situations have different norms right so i mean

00:05:32.120 i'll often hear about small towns and how people are more likely to talk to each other in a small town

00:05:37.820 or you know if you're walking your dog or taking your kid to the playground or taking a taxi those

00:05:42.860 situations it's pretty normal to talk to strangers but lots of other situations it's not normal and and

00:05:49.980 people think oh it's not okay i'm in the uk now and and when i talk to people about how we

00:05:55.160 generally people don't like to talk to strangers they always say but ireland so apparently everybody

00:06:01.200 in ireland talks to each other i had a student a master student named atali who just loves the

00:06:08.440 culture in south america and so for her dissertation she wanted to collect some data in argentina and she

00:06:14.660 asked people there about the fears that they had about talking to strangers and for some of the kinds

00:06:19.640 of fears that i was mentioning they're much lower for people in argentina compared to the uk but for

00:06:25.500 other kinds of fears there weren't any differences so so yeah you're definitely right i'm sure there's

00:06:30.140 cultural differences haven't done a lot of research on what those are but they're out there right i thought

00:06:35.880 that was an interesting point you brought up that in certain situations it's it's felt it's more

00:06:39.460 acceptable to talk to strangers right like yeah yeah in an uber like i'll i don't know if it's okay

00:06:44.240 like i'm like uber's new but i always feel like i should talk to the the driver he's a complete

00:06:49.400 stranger but it's like if you're on a bus or a train for some reason like okay you don't talk to

00:06:53.940 anybody oh people tell me that they'll talk but they'll wait until the trip is almost over because

00:06:58.420 they want to make sure they don't do it at the beginning because then they might get stuck talking

00:07:02.300 to someone for the whole trip right that would not yeah some people might want to do that so besides

00:07:07.120 the cultural influence there's also you know possibly like there's a fear or not fear of talking

00:07:12.880 stranger it varies from person to person so there might be some sort of just individual basis like

00:07:17.600 your dad might have just was your dad just extroverted and like that was just his thing

00:07:21.480 and are more introverted people less likely to talk to strangers good question i don't i always find

00:07:26.720 that one hard because extroversion is tricky i don't know it's it's hard to distinguish between

00:07:31.600 someone who's extroverted and introverted we're all sort of on at different points on a spectrum right

00:07:36.140 i don't even know where i fall i enjoy talking to strangers i probably do it way more than most people

00:07:41.180 but i don't love going to a party where there's lots of people i don't know

00:07:45.960 and given the choice i'd probably just stay home sit on the couch with my cats and a book

00:07:50.920 so am i extroverted sometimes but i think i think a lot of people are afraid of talking to strangers

00:07:56.700 even some extroverts but in all the studies that i've done everyone seems to report enjoying

00:08:02.800 conversations but there's a big difference before the conversation

00:08:06.160 so so my guess is that probably people who are a little less extroverted are going to worry more

00:08:11.680 before having a conversation but are going to benefit just as much and enjoy the conversations

00:08:17.080 just as much as someone who's a bit more extroverted gotcha you sound like an ambivert

00:08:21.220 yes that sounds about right right well so one of the big fears that people have when they

00:08:28.560 talk to somebody they don't know is that the other person they're going to try to you know

00:08:33.020 gin up this conversation with they're not they're going to think they're an idiot or they're not going

00:08:37.020 to like them but you've actually done studies on this yeah so what does the research say is this fear

00:08:41.160 that people aren't going to like us if we try to talk to them is that well founded it is not

00:08:46.880 so yes i did i did a little bit of research and and some of the data that i collected comes from

00:08:54.320 some how to talk to strangers workshops that i've run and how that works is people sign up and

00:09:00.960 you know it's a special group of people because they're obviously acknowledging that they think

00:09:04.600 it might be a good idea to talk to people and they're acknowledging that they think that they

00:09:08.800 can get better at doing that um but nevertheless these are people who clearly think they don't talk

00:09:14.880 as much as they should and i put them in a situation and i say okay you're gonna have to

00:09:18.780 talk to someone you've never talked to before and then i ask them a bunch of questions because

00:09:23.760 that's my job i'm a researcher i bug people all the time and ask them about to answer questions

00:09:28.120 so i asked them before having that conversation how interesting do you think your partner's going

00:09:34.120 to be and how interesting do you will they think that you are and and so before talking people say

00:09:41.220 yeah i think my partner's gonna be pretty interesting we'll have an interesting conversation

00:09:45.220 but they think uh the other person they're not really going to find me very interesting

00:09:49.460 and then they have a conversation and this is my favorite moment of these workshops because

00:09:55.020 at the beginning there's just sort of this awkward silence in the room and nobody really knows what

00:09:59.840 to do and then i give them permission to talk and then it's really hard to stop people from talking

00:10:04.200 and there's this buzz of conversation in the room but i i stopped them nevertheless and then i asked them

00:10:09.720 again um sort of how how did it go how interesting did your partner turn out to be and people generally

00:10:16.700 report that the conversation went better than they thought and their partner was even more interesting

00:10:21.360 than they thought they would be but still they think the other person didn't find them as interesting

00:10:26.420 so there's this thing we call the liking gap and that occurs both before having a conversation

00:10:32.180 and after having a conversation and and my collaborators and i have found that this effect

00:10:38.780 lasts a really long time so in my case with this workshop it was a quick conversation before and after

00:10:45.600 but we also measured it in longer conversations and even with roommates getting to know each other

00:10:51.700 over the course of several months so even after several months have elapsed people still tend to

00:10:56.980 underestimate how interesting their partner thinks they are and this is probably because we just have

00:11:02.900 a really negative voice in our head we think oh i shouldn't have said that or i should have said it a

00:11:08.060 different way maybe they took that wrong maybe they didn't understand me like we just have this

00:11:12.680 voice telling us that you know we don't know what we're doing we're not good enough at having a

00:11:19.720 conversation and i think the other thing on the other person like for me whenever someone talks to

00:11:25.520 me or you know tries to strike up a conversation like i like i i'm like rooting for them like i don't

00:11:31.420 know it's like i'm like i want them to succeed i want this to be a good time like i'm not not focusing

00:11:35.580 on the little like negative things that happen i don't even notice that oh well that's perfect i think

00:11:40.420 everybody would benefit if they thought of it that way i think we have to get out of that negative

00:11:44.720 you know get out of our own heads and and think about the other person and that would make things

00:11:49.120 go a lot more smoothly yeah and i think that they've done studies like that where you know you tend to

00:11:53.120 focus on your negative things more than other people are they've done that study where like yes they

00:11:57.340 made people wear dumb shirts and they oh yeah the spotlight the spotlight effect right it seems like

00:12:03.440 it's the spotlight effect going on a little bit yeah so we're far more aware of our own sort of

00:12:08.000 shortcomings and we think we're doing things that other people are going to notice when really other

00:12:12.960 people are in their own heads and not really paying too much attention to us but but one thing i just

00:12:18.200 want to point out is you know going but conversation going poorly is sort of relative right because we

00:12:26.320 kind of act like if a conversation doesn't go well it's this giant disaster but really usually if a

00:12:32.540 conversation goes poorly that really just means it's maybe a little bit awkward it maybe has sort of an

00:12:38.300 awkward silence in it or it's just kind of forgettable but it's hard it's not usually awful right like it

00:12:46.600 doesn't usually turn into an argument or an insult or anything especially negative usually if we say

00:12:52.220 a conversation goes poorly i think it's just kind of neutral i think that's a good point i don't think

00:12:57.580 i've ever had a conversation with a stranger where it ended up we were arguing and yelling at each other

00:13:01.680 yeah and i mean i don't know do you like movies i love movies well i mean you've watched probably

00:13:09.140 watched a lot of movies then are they all awesome no no they're not all awesome right you watch a lot

00:13:14.640 of movies and you know there's going to be a bunch that are just sort of and then hopefully you keep

00:13:19.620 watching movies and you're going to find a few that you really love i think conversations with

00:13:23.880 strangers are a little bit like that we just we have a lot of them hopefully and most of them a lot

00:13:30.200 of them might just be nothing special but every once in a while we're going to have one that's

00:13:34.240 really great and i think even the not special ones the ones that are just sort of average still

00:13:39.980 remind us that we can talk to people and sort of in aggregate makes us feel more connected to other

00:13:47.020 people so even if the individual conversation is nothing special the fact that you are able to have it

00:13:52.200 and have it go okay is is a good sign i think it still sends this sign to us about

00:13:58.600 how we're connected to each other we're gonna take a quick break for your word from our sponsors

00:14:03.140 and now back to the show well let's talk about that more because okay so some of the fears we have

00:14:09.880 about talking with strangers probably not well-founded people tend to like us more than we think they do

00:14:15.700 but some people would say like okay what's the point talking with strangers small talk it's a waste of time

00:14:20.440 but you're talking about you've said in your research people feel more connected what are the

00:14:25.240 benefits of that what are the benefits of feeling connected by talking with strangers sort of feel

00:14:29.820 like the feeling connected is benefit in itself but i imagine that it probably makes us feel a little

00:14:36.440 more trust towards other people and just feeling that trust and a little bit lower fear towards other

00:14:43.320 people is just i don't know i just i feel like personally i walk around feeling safer you know

00:14:50.780 knowing that most people are not that different from me and they're decent people just trying to

00:14:56.380 figure out how to live life just like i am and and i don't know that in itself just makes me feel good

00:15:02.060 right and that probably you know i'm sure you probably there's studies that can be done there where

00:15:06.800 it's like well just feeling good that can help you you know reduce stress levels i'm sure there's

00:15:11.320 studies like that that are out there for the picking and eventually yeah i don't know there

00:15:14.500 haven't there hasn't been too much research on talking to strangers it's sort of a new area

00:15:18.240 but i just went to a conference in february and there were several sessions about conversations and

00:15:24.260 so it seems to be something that people are getting a little more interested in but other benefits of

00:15:30.000 talking to strangers i've run a study where we asked people to think about how talking to a stranger

00:15:35.500 could be a pro-social thing so something that benefits not only you but the person that you're

00:15:40.700 talking to and people sort of we asked them open-ended questions about how it had gone at

00:15:46.300 the end of the day and people said they made new friends i mean these were mostly students that we

00:15:52.200 were studying in that study so they're on campus and there's a chance they'll see the person again

00:15:56.840 so that's maybe slightly different than you know in in the city coming across someone you'll probably

00:16:02.200 never see them again but yeah so our students that we studied said that they made new friends

00:16:07.560 which is great because every friend starts as a stranger right people told us they learn stuff

00:16:13.060 so someone said hey i talked to the barista and they asked them if they had a drink recommendation

00:16:19.140 and i tried something new so that's great and i think they mentioned how how surprising it was they

00:16:27.520 were surprised at how friendly people were when you made the effort to approach them and start a

00:16:32.220 conversation and i think a little surprise and a little novelty and uncertainty you know just a

00:16:38.240 little kind of makes a difference in our day it's it's a good thing right no definitely i'm serious

00:16:44.240 like people listening it's okay there's a benefit you can feel more connected can sort of bring some

00:16:48.520 novelty to your day but like how do you get started with talking with strangers i mean do you just like

00:16:53.780 go to random people and start chatting them up or do you are there different ways you sort of

00:16:59.300 ease your way into talking with strangers yeah i'm gonna give you a long answer to that question

00:17:04.080 i'll tell you what i do and but before i do that i wanted to share a little bit about a study that

00:17:11.000 i'm running right now so my research has sort of found over and over again i've i've asked lots of

00:17:16.400 people in my research career to talk to strangers and they generally enjoy doing it but if i ask them

00:17:23.020 after they've just had a pleasant conversation with someone you know what do you think it would be like

00:17:27.620 to talk to someone else people sort of think oh well that conversation might have gone okay but

00:17:33.320 the next one i don't know and so i think that's sort of our tendency to overestimate how different

00:17:39.840 we are from each other and so what i've been doing in this most recent study with my collaborators

00:17:46.200 erica boothby and gus cooney we've been doing a scavenger hunt so we've been putting people in a

00:17:51.720 situation where they need to talk to someone new every day and we thought how are we going to get

00:17:56.800 people to do that when people are so scared of it and we thought okay we got to turn it into a game

00:18:01.320 we got to make it fun and so people in this study every day they play this new scavenger hunt game on

00:18:07.740 their phone like using this app and we give them a bunch of different missions and they're supposed

00:18:13.540 to choose at least one every day and so the missions might be something like find someone who's

00:18:18.380 wearing a hat or find someone who's wearing something red or find someone who's drinking a coffee

00:18:23.360 and then they have to go up and talk to that person and then they report back to us on how it

00:18:28.240 went and some of those people we gave them some tips on how they could do it so this is how it

00:18:33.060 connects back to the question you asked me and so i i can't tell you yet which tips were the most

00:18:38.880 effective but i can tell you which tips people told us they chose to use and so of the five tips here

00:18:47.200 they are in order of how often people chose to use them the first number one most used tip was we told

00:18:54.140 people just be brave we said people like you more than you think so this is just telling people about

00:19:01.100 the liking gap which we talked about before and so the most people said yep i like that tip i'm going

00:19:05.740 to try to just be brave the second most common thing people did was to comment on something they had

00:19:11.640 in common and this is where talking about the weather comes into play right i think that's that's

00:19:16.620 why people do it it's it's a shared experience you know they're both you're in the same place you're

00:19:20.840 that's something that you have in common there's obviously other things you can comment on as well

00:19:25.060 in our studies we've often studied students and so they're at the same campus maybe they're

00:19:29.900 studying the same program so it's pretty easy to find something you have in common with someone

00:19:34.140 the third tip that people liked was giving people a compliment and the reason i think this works

00:19:40.860 there's kind of two reasons one is it gives people a way to start the conversation because i've

00:19:45.700 done some research showing that starting the conversation is this is the really scary part

00:19:50.180 the middle of the conversation and the end of the conversation are not as scary as starting the

00:19:56.060 conversation so you can use a compliment to start a conversation and like we talked about before i

00:20:01.700 think it just helps you get out of your own head and shift your focus to the other person

00:20:05.920 the fourth tip is just to use your curiosity and i think that has the same benefits is it's a way to

00:20:12.540 start the conversation and a way to be shifting your focus to the other person and then the fifth the

00:20:18.320 least common commonly used tip was our reminder to people that they would brighten the other person's

00:20:25.160 day so you know it's gonna be a good thing for you to talk to the to a stranger because they'll benefit

00:20:31.140 from it so people don't seem to really resonate with that tip but it is true and uh i still i like

00:20:38.900 that tip so for me personally i often just i it's about being observant and commenting on something i

00:20:47.560 see but sometimes i'm just cracking a joke so i was on the train recently and there was these two

00:20:54.400 gentlemen who were wearing exactly the same clothes as each other which seems weird but it turns out that

00:21:00.620 they're they were freemasons and there was about there was a thousand of them who'd gone into london for

00:21:05.620 some annual dinner so i just made some kind of joke about you know did you guys text each other in the

00:21:10.360 morning about what you were gonna wear i talked to someone on the tube once in london because he was

00:21:15.660 eating cookies for breakfast and that just seemed unusual so i was commenting on that so often i'm just

00:21:21.340 sort of you know trying to make people smile and sometimes i'm just using my curiosity so once i was on the

00:21:28.060 tube and there was a bunch of people who seemed to be wearing the same t-shirt it was for some kind

00:21:32.180 of running race and so i was like what's that all about or i you know there's a lady who was wearing

00:21:38.220 airplane earrings i thought why why do you have airplane earrings so curiosity is is something that

00:21:44.740 i draw on a lot and i do think about it was the least used tip to think about how it might make a

00:21:50.300 difference to the other person but it is something that i think about in some situations so

00:21:54.500 i've definitely been in you know a room full of people and seen someone standing on their own

00:21:59.160 and gone over and talked to them because it helps me get over my own fear to think that i might be

00:22:03.700 helping the other person no those are all i love that but sometimes i think you know another tip that

00:22:09.680 we didn't put in the scavenger hunt study is just i have to be patient and be okay that it might be a

00:22:16.320 little bit awkward sometimes it takes a while to to get started and then it might go a little bit more

00:22:22.500 smoothly so i think it's something we can learn and get better at but sometimes it's it doesn't go

00:22:30.560 well and that's okay you can control half of the conversation but there's another person too

00:22:35.560 and you you have no control over them and some people are it's just harder to talk to it's just

00:22:40.620 hard to engage some people in a conversation and i think the trick there is to to not be offended

00:22:45.560 don't take it personally and just try talking to someone else but i have a story i'd like to share

00:22:52.440 about a recent yeah a recent talking to strangers episode it's it's my current favorite and it started

00:22:58.520 off really awkward so i had been in london on on the radio in the morning and it was and so it was

00:23:06.460 kind of exciting and so i got on the tube afterwards to head home and i was kind of you know i had a

00:23:12.540 little bit of a buzz because it had been pretty exciting and so i turned to the lady next to me

00:23:17.100 and i said how's your day going and she said that's fine and i thought okay that conversation's dead

00:23:24.260 and then she said well how's your day going and i said actually i had quite an adventure today and i

00:23:30.680 told her about how i'd been on the radio and then she turned back to me and she said well actually i just

00:23:37.080 found out that i'm pregnant and and so it was you know she was going to have to go back to her office

00:23:42.500 and not talk about it because you know we don't talk about these things for for a while but it was

00:23:47.260 okay for her to tell me a complete stranger maybe partly because it was a reciprocity thing i just

00:23:52.680 shared something with her and she shared it back with me and it just felt so amazing that someone

00:23:57.140 was able to to trust me and tell me something like that and share their good news and we hugged it out

00:24:03.260 that's awesome well i love that story so those are all great tips another tip that i've seen is

00:24:11.280 if another way to ease your way into talking to strangers is looking for opportunities where you're

00:24:15.160 sort of you're forced to interact with people but you typically keep it arm's length like you know if

00:24:20.480 you're the barista or the cashier right it's very transactional it's all business um use that

00:24:26.840 opportunity um you're already talking to them like why don't you just take it a little bit further

00:24:31.540 ask about how their day is going or whatever yeah i think i think that's a great tip and you can try

00:24:36.500 it out and see how it goes and you can just walk away at the end but just give yourself that chance

00:24:40.800 to to have some practice yeah my uh what i do is my shtick is at whole foods they have like cds in

00:24:48.820 front of the the cash register and i'll use that as a conversation starter with a cashier it's like hey

00:24:54.780 what do you think and it's always they always have like really weird cds like from like the 70s or

00:24:59.700 like the 80s you know like albums from them it's like what do you think about this one or i asked

00:25:03.480 like does anyone ever buy right and that's always gotten some good good conversation going and what's

00:25:09.400 nice is like we we go there enough and i've had a conversation like i feel connected those people

00:25:13.200 like they're they're not like close friends but like yeah i know them yeah and it feels good and

00:25:17.980 you probably miss them if they're not there it doesn't feel the same exactly i think that makes it

00:25:22.560 hard to move to a new city because you think you know we think about how we're leaving friends and

00:25:27.140 family behind but you're also leaving behind that whole network of you know weak ties that

00:25:32.400 you don't really think about but when they're not there i think i think we miss them well julia where

00:25:38.060 are you seeing your research going like where are you leaning into more with this talking to strangers

00:25:43.340 line of research i'm sort of changing my path in the near future it occurred to me so i've been

00:25:49.480 looking a lot at trying to understand like i said what kind of exactly why people are so worried

00:25:54.360 about talking to each other and uh so just like the hot dog stand inspired that a post on facebook

00:26:01.120 has inspired what i'm doing next and there was a there's a woman named emily mcdowell who created

00:26:07.360 this line of greeting cards and and she had experienced cancer treatment and just that situation that

00:26:15.860 we all hear about about how you're going through something difficult and then you really find out

00:26:19.320 who your friends are because people just sort of disappear um and they i it occurred to me that

00:26:26.060 maybe it's there there might be some similarity within these two different kind of situations

00:26:31.280 maybe people you know people obviously don't know what to say and so they're choosing to say nothing at

00:26:36.840 all which is probably the exact wrong decision um because you know the person needs you in that moment

00:26:41.820 and maybe they're maybe we shouldn't be worried so much about saying the wrong thing but but yeah it

00:26:48.340 just made me wonder how much of the worries we have in that situation could be similar to the ones we

00:26:55.500 have when talking to strangers and then you know if we do find that sort of common things common fears

00:27:00.420 that would make it you know those are the things we should be targeting to help people have better

00:27:05.180 communication so that's sort of where i'm pivoting to a little bit in the in the near future is is

00:27:10.360 looking at difficult conversations and trying to figure out how to make them a little bit better

00:27:14.720 so i've done one study already working with a local hospice and looking at conversations about dying

00:27:22.200 so people at the hospice who you know they're not death is not imminent for them but they have been

00:27:28.360 diagnosed with a life-limiting condition and these are people who are coming to a support group

00:27:32.680 and so just asking them you know have you had a conversation with a confidant about your death

00:27:39.200 and and what kind of things did you talk about and were you okay with the things that people said

00:27:44.640 where they or were they awful you know just trying to understand are there things that people really

00:27:48.520 shouldn't say and you know how did it go and and then comparing that to people who are in a similar

00:27:54.980 situation but have not had a conversation about death and trying to understand you know what are

00:27:59.960 they worried about and are those fears overblown as well so so it feels very similar but also quite

00:28:05.260 different from what i've been doing no i bet it's very similar because yeah i've always had that

00:28:10.060 feeling when someone's going through hard times like uh i'll probably just say something dumb so

00:28:14.100 i'm just not gonna say anything but when i'm on the receiving end i don't care what anyone says i just

00:28:19.580 feel glad that someone like showed up and tried to have a conversation with me yeah exactly so i think

00:28:25.760 there's probably similar things going on where we're worried too much about saying the wrong thing

00:28:31.460 and you know just inside our heads and probably the best situation is you know there's nothing wrong

00:28:38.100 with telling the person look this is really awful what you're going through and i don't know what to

00:28:43.360 say and i'm worried about saying the wrong thing but i just want you to know that i'm there for you and

00:28:47.360 tell me what you need from me yeah that's often like yeah when someone said that to me if i was

00:28:51.560 going through a hard time be like man you're awesome i'm so glad this is great well julian where can

00:28:56.840 people go to learn more about your work i have a website so it's just my name jillian sandstrom.com

00:29:03.340 i'm always happy to talk to people about talking to strangers and if anyone has ideas for how to use

00:29:08.580 my research and something that they're doing i'd love to hear from them well fantastic well

00:29:13.120 julian sandstrom thanks so much time it's been a pleasure thank you so much for having me my guest

00:29:17.320 today was julian sandstrom you can find out more information about her work by going to her website

00:29:21.080 julian sandstrom.com also check out our show notes at aom.is talk to strangers where you find

00:29:26.980 links to resources where you delve deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of

00:29:38.060 the a1 podcast check out our website artofmanliness.com where you find our podcast archives got over 500

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00:30:13.060 you

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

#502： Why You Should Talk to Strangers

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