1. You Can Make a Great Friend

One of the best reasons to talk to strangers is that you never know which stranger is going to make the leap in to becoming a great and lifelong friend. When you think about it, everybody in your life was a stranger once, and if you hadn’t of made the decision to enter in conversation and communication with them, they wouldn’t be in your life in the way that they are right now! What makes the stranger on the subway any different?

2. Expands Your World View

Due to the nature of friendships, we tend to surround ourselves with people who share a pretty similar outlook on life as we do. However, having a conversation with a stranger about any given topic can be really interesting in the fact that it opens up your world view and puts you in to contact with opinions and beliefs that you may not have necessarily thought about or considered before. This is the beauty of sharing with strangers.

3. Improved Social Skills

Over time, we develop a level of comfort and safety with our friends and family that can almost in a way stunt our social skills. For example, you might have a way of talking, almost a shorthand, with your closest companions that is nearly unintelligible to the outside world! Talking to strangers can help to improve your social skills because it forces you to be more formal and ‘official’ than you might be with your nearest and dearest.

4. Improved Assertiveness

Talking to strangers can help you to be more confident and assertive in your actions, because oftentimes in your personal life you might want to be straight or abrupt with a loved one, but fear the consequences or hurt feelings. However, with a casual stranger, you do not need to worry about making amends if you feel the need to be curt with on a bus or on the street. Being assertive with a stranger can help to build your confidence and tact for having words with loved ones.

5. Cheer Someone up

If you are sitting next to somebody on the bus who looks really down in the dumps, do not be afraid to ask them if they are okay. Sometimes having a mini therapy session with a stranger can be some of the most helpful and freeing communication that you can have. You have the opportunity to make somebody feel better about themselves and about a situation they are going through.

6. Different Opinions

Talking to strangers who have different ways of thinking to your own can often give you an insight in to solving a problem that you had never thought of before. It’s great to have as many different ways to resolve an issue as possible, and the unbiased viewpoint of a stranger can be of great help on those situations.

7. Confidence Boost

Sometimes, having a polite and enlightening conversation with a stranger is all it takes for your confidence to be given a much-needed jolt of positivity. Talking to somebody for the first time ever brings back all those childhood feelings of making friends and being accepted, and the feelings of self worth that can arise from a simple ten minute conversation on the bus ride home is really quite remarkable.

One of my most favorite quotes ever is “a stranger is a friend you haven’t met yet.” Are you now ready to strike up a conversation with a stranger?