How You Can Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Talking to Strangers

I remember being pretty annoyed with strangers who started random conversations with me – ironic considering I am now one of those people. Nowadays, I talk to everyone: old people on the bus, young people on the street, English-language learners, professors, gangbangers – you name it! And in the past few years, it changed from something I loathed doing into something I love doing.

What’s more, as a fitness intern and hopeful Personal Trainer, I chat and connect with different individuals everyday. Yet talking with strangers wasn’t an ability I always had – it wasn’t something I was even mediocre at.

I sucked, truth be told.

Much like how the Kardashians rose to stardom, talking with strangers seemed like an enigma: I mean, what do you say? How do you start? How do you finish? And what if they blow you off?? Honestly, I was stumped. But for all I didn’t know, I knew one thing for sure – I had to improve. And by my Senior year in university, I couldn’t help but think what would happen if I changed.

Well, I started out by reading tips on how to talk to people – stigma be damned – and it helped a bit. But I didn’t want to consciously recall what I previously read while I was actively talking to someone – I wanted it to flow naturally. Unfortunately, a tip for that didn’t really exist.

– Challenge Accepted –

[quote align=”left”]”Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”

– Bruce Lee[/quote]
Then it hit me: I could only acquire that skill from real-life experience – it was one thing to gain knowledge; it was a completely different thing to use that knowledge. So, being the thrill-seeking college student I was, I created a challenge that forced me to get as many repetitions as possible in as short of a time as possible. Here were the rules:

Converse with at least one stranger every day. Then, at day’s end, write into a journal:
[list type=”3″]

• Their name
• Something I learned about them
• What we talked about
• The atmosphere – was it tense? Relaxed? Shy? Friendly?
• And the most important aspect: how could I improve??

[/list]
I did that everyday for three months.

– Dr. Strange[r]Love –

By the end, I was a different person.

I found myself leisurely starting conversations with strangers and having a blast in the process. I sparked friendships with some amazing people during my adventure and defeated many of my social phobias. Yet did I struggle throughout the challenge? Of course I did. And did I embarrass myself sometimes? Absolutely! For every one success, there were multiple failures.

But when things got awkward – which happened more often than I care to admit – I forced myself to sit through those emotions and become acclimated; once I felt that “my-cheeks-are-burning” sensation, I always held out for a few more seconds. To borrow a cliché, I sought to “get out of my comfort zone” because I realized that’s where learning happens.

My Exhaustively Designed Diagram

After that, my life was never the same.

[tweetbutton]