In my stranger encounter, I did not stand in an elevator with my head facing to the wall, nor did I make a joke, as James Hamblin otherwise suggested one could do. I practice civil inattention a lot throughout the day. I do it in the bus, in the elevator and in the dinning hall. Whenever I talk to someone, it usually involves phrases like “sorry” or “no worries”, and it is often said when someone being in each other’s way.
Based on this consideration, I wanted to talk to someone on the bus, on my way home from school. But I must admit, it felt too overwhelming… Instead, I chose to talk to someone from school. So, the other day when I entered my planning class, I went over and sat next to a stranger. I introduced myself, and we engaged in small talked about school, daily life and my exchange experience. After this, the person no longer felt like a stranger to me.
Thinking about it, I do not think the ‘talking to a stranger’ in real life differed that much from my online interactions. I do not follow- or get in contact with strangers online, unless it is with a specific purpose – with that, a professional. I did get the person from my class’s Instagram. Based on our first lecture in PUB 101, I did the analysis of her real life presence vs. online. It was fun and interesting to get a further impression of her as a person from her Instagram, but nonetheless did she not surprise me very much on her social media compared to her in real life.
