On Connecting with Strangers

How many strangers do you come into contact with every week? 

I have a weird job. I’m a poet and an educator, and a lot of my work revolves around visiting schools, colleges, and community projects, giving people the opportunity to try poetry and creative writing. 

The job requires me to talk to a lot of people who I wouldn’t otherwise come into contact with. 

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working with a group of adults with learning disabilities and mental health challenges, as well as a group of professional storytellers, a group of autistic kids, poets writing over Zoom, three young writers’ groups, and a conference room full of sixth form students looking for volunteering opportunities in the arts. 

In fact, in an average week, I probably talk to hundreds of new people. And that’s scary. Isn't it? After all, strangers are unpredictable, unreliable, possibly even dangerous. Right?  

I really don't believe that's true. In fact, talking to strangers is my absolute favourite thing to do. 

Human connection really does feed my soul, and I love getting to know new people, finding out we have things in common, or learning that they had a cool secret skill or hobby.

I just love finding out where people come from and what makes them tick! 

And, if I was being judgemental about myself, I’d say that I’ve just managed to turn my chronic, unending nosiness into a career. But really, I just love stories. And everyone has stories, whether they know it or not. It may take a little bit longer for them to feel safe to tell them, but creativity, curiosity, and connection really do bring people together. 

I’ve been supporting a community group recently who have never written poetry before. Quite a few members of the group have complex health issues, or low levels of literacy, or learning disabilities. So we chat. And I’ve learned all their pets’ names, where their children live, and how they get to the community centre every Monday. I’ve learnt all about things I never would've discovered on my own: football, and jazz, and the launch of the Artimis 1 into outer space. I’ve listened to tales of bereavement, tales of bad circumstances, and tales of finding joy in the chaos. And those conversations - and the writing that comes from them - have become the highlight of my week. 

It's always been very easy to live in our own little bubbles, only socialising with friends and family who share our interests, our background, our socio-economic bracket on a tax form. And those bubbles make it very easy to see other people as stereotypes and caricatures. 

But for me, having the impetus to go out and talk to loads of different people is such a tonic to the ‘us versus them’ ideology that proliferates in contemporary media narratives. 

Think you have nothing in common with a teenager from an inter-city school? Turns out you like the same type of books! Think you have nothing in common with a newly-arrived asylum-seeker? Turns out you both love the same TV Chef! Think you have nothing in common with an autistic fourteen-year-old? Turns out you both love your cats more than anything else in the whole world! 

I’m not saying you should sidle up to every person at the bus stop and strike up conversations (Although I’ve been known to do that too!) and I definitely need to acknowledge my privilege in my interactions with strangers. (If I wasn’t a short, white, middle-aged, straight-passing woman, running a workshop, my experiences might be very different.) 

And listen, I know that talking to strangers probably isn’t going to fix the Culture War, or the Climate Emergency, or the Cost-of-Living Crisis. 

But I do think that listening to people, and being curious about their stories, goes a long way towards improving how we all feel about ourselves, how we feel about the communities around us, and how we feel about our collective responsibilities to one another. 

And maybe that’s the first step towards changing things for the better? 

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