“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.” — Measure for Measure
My mission for the afternoon is to talk to 10 strangers. Here are my rules:
Each person must be a complete stranger.
Our ‘conversation’ must extend beyond 2-3 cached statements. “Hi how are you?” “I’m good thanks, yourself?” “Not bad… could I please have a decaf iced coffee with–” does not count. The conversation must reach a point of uniqueness for each of us.
I need to talk to both men and women, something like a 50-50 split.
Surely I can do this, right? Right? I feel confident, though I worry my confidence will dissipate the moment there’s a live, non-imaginary person I want to talk to.
I’ve planned an itinerary for the afternoon that takes me to places around town which (a) will have people milling about, and (b) I would visit regardless of this challenge. If I fail, it will still be a pleasant day. But I really don’t want to fail.
1.
I leave my apartment and walk towards the metro. Almost immediately I encounter a beautiful woman. I am unprepared for this. Speaking to her is completely out of the question. That is a black-belt-level move and I’ve only got whichever color is the first belt color they give you. We are walking the same direction on the same sidewalk, me slightly behind and walking at a similar speed. I can maintain my speed, becoming Large Man Following Woman, OR I can speed up slightly, awkwardly overtaking her over the course of a minute or two, praying that she doesn’t panic when she notices Large Man Approaching Slowly from Behind. I do the second one.
My self-talk on the metro is excellent. I look good and I feel confident. I’ll start as quickly as I can. I’ll talk to the first person who seems even mildly approachable. I begin simulating hypothetical conversations with hypothetical people in hypothetical locations, but then stop myself. I won’t pre-plan what I’m going to say, I won’t try to simulate people’s responses. This is improv. I will wander around until I see someone or something interesting and then say, “hey that’s interesting, hello” or something.
I get off at Eastern Market. On the escalator it occurs to me that what I am attempting (speaking to other human beings) is unfortunately impossible and that I am not capable of this. But then I say “wrong, yes I am” and let the thought float on into the ether. I think about how lame I’ll feel if I go home having failed after all this buildup (I came up with this idea nearly a full 24 hours ago).
I reach street level. Excuses, immediately. This isn’t a good location (it is). Talking to people is weird (it isn’t). Serial killers talk to people (technically true, good point actually). I’ll do it tomorrow instead (no you’ll say the same thing tomorrow). I press on and reach a street market with dozens of vendors selling their various wares in tents along the street. It’s a bustling area. An ideal location for this.
I enter a tent filled with painted ceramics and carved wooden kitchen implements. All of it is gorgeous. The stall is managed by an old woman. I ask her if she made all of this, all of it is gorgeous. She tells me it’s a family business and that her relatives in Tunisia make the stuff and she sells it here. I tell her I’m interested in some of the coffee cups. I’ve been looking for a nice set of cups like this for a while! But I don’t have anything to carry them in. Is she here every week? Yes, every weekend when it isn’t raining. She shows me there’s a QR code for their website. Then I ask about the wooden kitchenware. Was it hand carved? Yes, all of it. It’s made of olive wood. They wait until the olive trees have stopped producing good olive harvests to cut them, usually when the trees are a hundred years old or more. The wood has a beautiful grain to it. I tell her my grandpa used to do woodworking, but generally larger things like furniture, and he used machines.
2.
That was so easy. Why does this feel like an achievement? There was absolutely nothing complicated or difficult or dangerous about what I just did. Why has it always been so hard for me to do this?
A few minutes later, I’m at a different stall. There’s a man selling framed stamps and some other bits of artwork. A pair of women are just completing a purchase. I can talk to them, ask them what they bought. Ha! Good one. They leave and now it’s just me and the man. I ask how long he’s been collecting stamps. 20 years. I like quite a few of them. There’s a Green Bay Packers one displayed prominently that catches my eye. Some space-related ones as well. I see a Skylab stamp, a Mercury stamp. The man mumbles something about how it’s been a good day for sales. I ask him about the other artwork. He tells me these are polaroid images that have been transferred to watercolor paper, using some kind of special polaroid film that isn’t sold anymore. He transfers the image to the paper, and then uses pastels to go over the image and stylize it. The paper is made by Arches specifically for this technique. He says he’s not an artist. He’s wrong!
3.
It’s a hot day and I’m sweating. I enter another stall. There are framed images of US states made using blotches of what I assume is paint. There’s an old woman running the stall. She tells me she has every state. I ask what the medium is and she tells me it’s watercolor which surprises me. I tell her I’m surprised, the colors look more opaque and bright than I expect from watercolor. She says something about how she paints on clay (I think she said clay but I’m not sure) and that’s what gives it this appearance. I tell her I get a piece of artwork from each state I live in and that I don’t have one for Tennessee yet. Maybe I will come back and buy the Tennessee painting.
4.
Three strangers in an hour. If I want I could probably repeat this formula for another hour or two and reach my ten person goal without much trouble. But now I’m moving my internal goalposts. These conversations were all the same format in the same place. Too easy, I need to keep pushing myself. Different types of people, different environments, different topics.
I spend another half hour wandering around Eastern Market. I walk through the indoor market, but it’s a bit crowded and loud and chaotic. I don’t find any opportunities to talk to people. I stroll around the outdoor market again for a bit, but by this point I’ve decided I won’t talk to any more vendors since that seems too easy. I decide to continue to the next location on my itinerary, the Folger Shakespeare Library.
On the way I pass a few women walking in the other direction. Like every woman I’ve passed today, they each wear an expression that says “I would like to murder you” and behave as though it is their fervent belief that eye contact lasting longer than 0.1 seconds would cause them to drop dead. Is that how I look to the people walking past me?
When I reach the Folger, I check in at the desk, and I miss an opportunity to ask the people at the desk anything non-scripted. What’s the coolest thing here? What’s the best Shakespeare play? Something like that. But I don’t do that.
Three minutes later I waste another opportunity when a guy makes a joke to his girlfriend, a little more loudly than he means to, about how he’s excited to see ‘Bill’ and they laugh and she shushes him. They’re standing right behind me at the same exhibit and I chuckle and glance at them a little, but I can’t come up with anything to say.
I notice a few people talking to a museum guide, something about the wall of First Folio copies they have in a large display case. A few minutes later the visitors move on and the guide is looking for people to assist. She asks if I have any questions. I ask about something I read on an info panel. It says the copies in the display are ordered based on how valuable they are. What makes the most valuable one the most valuable? She explains that actually it isn’t really, the Folgers just thought it was when they were building the collection. Something to do with the inscription, it was from the guy who owned the original print shop or something. I don’t remember exactly. I talk to her for 10 minutes about Shakespeare stuff. Every letter on every page had to be arranged by hand by the printer. Different printers made different mistakes when laying out the letters, so each batch has its own unique set of errors. She also claims that the picture of Shakespeare at the front of the First Folio was mostly made up because it was done posthumously [I looked this up later and I don’t think it’s really true. Contemporaries of Shakespeare who knew him said that the image was a good likeness].
5.
I walk to the Folger’s cafe. On the way I pass a girl, roughly my age, who looks extremely cool. Cool shoes, cool socks, cool shirt, cool hat, cool gold bracelet things on her arms. Cool face. We walk past each other, neither of us indicating in any way that we are aware the other person exists. A bit later she winds up a few tables in front of mine at the cafe. She orders and goes and sits with her friend. Both are working at their computers.
When I order, I start by asking the barista “how is your day going?” Her face brightens slightly and she responds with slightly more expressiveness than I’m expecting, as though she actually heard me and actually cares how my day is going. But now I don’t know what else to say so I say “Not bad… could I please have a decaf iced coffee with–” and then I go sit down.
As I wait for my coffee I glance at the girl with the cool bracelets, staring intently at her computer and resign myself to the fact that as cool as she is, it is inconceivable that I could walk over to her table and tell her that, and instead I will drink my coffee and leave and then I will not see her again for the rest of my life. So I drink my coffee and leave and now I will not see her again for the rest of my life. Not to be.
I leave the Folger and walk towards the metro. My next stop is the Museum of Asian Art, just outside the Smithsonian station. On the way I pass a man on the street who seems lost. He’s difficult to understand but seems to be asking how to get to 395. What? 395 is an interstate highway. He is by himself, on foot, and doesn’t seem to have a phone. What good is 395 to this man? I pull up Google Maps and try to show him where we are and get him to clarify where it is he’s trying to go. He just keeps asking if I know where 395 is. We mutually give up and I walk away. I wish I hadn’t. I quit too soon. I should’ve got that man his 395, damnit. The interaction is too brief and disjointed for me to count it as #5. We’ll call it 4.5.
I metro to Smithsonian and head to the Asian Art Museum. As I’m entering there’s a group of three close behind me - a goth girl with a cane, a girl wearing a patterned Harry Potter shirt, and a guy who I think is the boyfriend of the second girl. I hold the door for them and one of them makes a comment about how it’s crazy that the Smithsonian isn’t ADA accessible. They seem friendly. There are about 20 different things I could use as conversation starters. Instead I walk into the museum and head in the opposite direction as them. I’m in the museum for about 30 minutes and I don’t say anything to anyone. I do see a beautiful green and gold room with exquisite blue-and-white porcelain vases. So there’s that.
I leave the museum and go back to the metro station. There’s a large man with a bright red hawaiian shirt with white flowers all over it. I think about saying ‘hey man that’s a cool shirt, where’d you get it?’ but instead I stand 3 feet away from him for the next 7 minutes in complete silence waiting for the train.
I get off at Metro Center and walk to an art store to pick up a few pens. The store is mostly empty. I get my pens and then head to the watercolor area to look at the paints. I’ve started learning watercolors recently. There’s a woman standing there who is also looking at the paints. She has headphones in. I leave and go to the checkout. “Hi how is your day going?” “My day has been good, how about yours?” “Not bad… could I please have a decaf iced coffee with–”
Things have hit a wall. I am passing up opportunities left and right. I haven’t talked to anyone in close to two hours. I’m spending too much time walking and am giving up on each new place too quickly. I head towards Dupont Circle. There are two bookstores there that are always busy. Surely I can think of something to say to someone at a bookstore. On the walk over, I stop at a crosswalk next to three young men dressed in costume for some sort of convention that they’ve just left. This is a layup. “What convention were you guys at?” The walk sign comes on and I depart in silence. Am I even trying anymore?
The bookstores are no better. The first is a used bookstore, and it’s busy when I arrive. A man is standing near his friend and points out that they have some books by George Eliot. The friend clearly has never heard of George Eliot. I’m standing right there, looking at the George Eliot books. There is a voice in my head screaming at me to say the words “Is George Eliot the person who wrote Middlemarch?” I know full well that George Eliot is the person who wrote Middlemarch but THAT’S NOT THE POINT, THE POINT IS TO SAY HUMAN WORDS TO HUMAN BEING, but I do not say these or any words to human being.
I make eye contact with an attractive girl. She has apparently not heard the thing about how holding eye contact for longer than 0.1 seconds causes instant death, because we hold eye contact for a deeply uncomfortable 1.25 seconds. We each mill about the store and wind up near each other an improbable number of times given the size and layout of the store. We make eye contact several more times. Something is up. I promptly leave the store and now I will not see her again for the rest of my life. Not to be.
The second bookstore is similar, minus the probably-imagined flirtation. At the second bookstore I attempt to buy a copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets and a copy of The Sound and the Fury, because if I’m not going to talk to anybody, the least I can do is spend more money, but unfortunately I fail at that as well because I don’t have my wallet and the card reader is incompatible with Google Pay. So I re-shelve the books and leave.
The project has stalled completely. The only other planned stop on my itinerary was a pub near the bookstore, but since I don’t have my wallet, and therefore my ID, I rule that out. I’ve talked to 4 strangers so far. I’ve walked a good 6 or 7 miles by this point and been on my feet all afternoon. I consider quitting. I decide to head home, eat dinner, and regroup. On the train home, a woman sits across from me, wearing an expression that says “I want to murder you” for the full 20 minutes we share the train. Right as I exit the train, she receives a phone call and begins to answer in the most friendly, upbeat tone I’ve heard anyone speak in all day, a radiant smile across her face.
Bars are my last best hope at this point. I am not particularly good at being in bars, or rather I am particularly not good at being in bars, but bars have people, many of whom are talking to each other and some of whom could theoretically talk to me. I eat my dinner and take a shower and head out once more to confront the insurmountable challenge of speaking to other people. I go to a bar I’m reasonably familiar with where I know there will be live music. I buy a beer and I tell the woman next to me at the bar that I like her jacket, which is covered in sparkles. She says thank you. I walk away.
The place is much deader than I expect for a Saturday night. There’s a large open area in front of the stage where people are gathered, waiting for the band to start. I spot a young man standing near a corner by himself. I walk up to him and say “What’s up, my name’s Jake.” We talk for a few minutes. He’s there with his coworker who is seated at the bar a few feet away. They came here to unwind after a long week of work. They both work on the Long Bridge Project, which he informs me is a series of rail and pedestrian bridges being constructed across the Potomac. I tell him I wasn’t familiar with the project but it sounds like a cool gig. Stranger #5.
—
The band starts playing a few minutes later. It’s a Taylor Swift cover band. I stand there among the feeble crowd and listen for a while. There’s a group of women in front of me to the right who I think about approaching and asking “what is your favorite Taylor Swift song?” And there are a few other groups that come and go that seem approachable. Theoretically. I leave and head to a different bar, this one also playing live music and packed to the brim. 30 minutes later I leave that bar too, the only words spoken in the interim being “Miller Lite” and “Closed” and “Thank you.” As punishment for my cowardice and to burn off the excess beers, I walk the five miles home in the dark, debating whether the day was a success or a failure.
—
Why? Why did I spend a day like this? Why not just be normal?
I suppose I’m not especially satisfied with what ‘normal’ is for me. Everywhere I go, I see people who are with other people, and all of those people seem happy. I walk past crowded bars and restaurants packed with groups of friends laughing together. I see happy families eating ice cream in the park. I hear tales of Poker Night With The Guys and Brunch With The Girls and Volleyball In The Park With The Squad and everyone is always out of town for My Friend’s Wedding. And I don’t quite understand why but somewhere along the way, my path diverged with all of their paths, and the only attractions I see on my path are Go for a Walk By Myself and Watch TV By Myself and Stare At My Computer by Myself, and I don’t like this path! I would prefer a different one!
I realize that forcing myself to talk to a bunch of strangers is not essential to finding that other path. I am doing Attend Club For Activity You Like and Take Class and Host Things Yourself and Follow Up With People and all the standard, presumably good, advice. I know that with enough time and patience those things will work. Talking to strangers is not not going to help though.
But beyond all that, I simply want to be the type of person who is comfortable talking to strangers. And I want to be the type of person who strangers are comfortable talking to. This seems like a fun person to be, and a person who the world could use more of. And that is reason enough in itself. I want to be a person who is good at art, so I practice art. I want to be a person who is good at talking to strangers, so I practice talking to strangers.