this isn’t some like, anti-“stranger danger” thing. it’s a little more like
admittedly, for this to go consistently well, you've gotta be decent at reading people – know when they're disinterested, they want to leave, you need to drop the topic, all that. helps to know how to drive the conversation too; can you wind things down in a way that isn't too abrupt? drag it toward what you're interested in, or away from what you're not?
and, a big plus: have a guess how you can get better at each and every one of these things
chat to strangers!
people are interesting, and you can talk to them. anything from letting someone know their shoelace is undone to jumping into full just-like-we're-old-friends conversation; it's fun, and if you're anything like me, either could be the highlight of your day.
you: ok why are you saying this now though
first off, rude. this is just one of my personal beliefs. but
i was at the train station! and there's a type of train you never see here, just parked up!! so i performed the default action of any female born after 1993 and took some photos of it sitting there, and some videos of it starting to pull away. but as it (confusingly) pulled back in, i realised,,,,
so i did! strolled up to the tail end of the train, chatted to someone also hanging out down there that seemed to be a railfan, and when the guard popped out of the cab, i threw out a
hey, how much can you tell us about what y'all are up to?
the initial response, well... if this was an rpg (idk i've never played one) you'd assume i'd screwed up hard.
what do you mean?
but i knew what i meant, so
you just don't see these trains out here that often!
the floodgates open
i got a lovely infodump about the network, about scheduling, about why these trains are rare out here. learned some terminology i didn't know. and after all that, got to thank them for the chat as they dangled out of the open door of the now departing train cab.
i'd like to think we both walked away happy.
Whenever a random stranger tries to talk to me on transit/etc and won't take a hint when I'm clearly ignoring them it's the worst part of my day and likely their day too.
Agreed. I'm autistic and have bad social anxiety, and the amount of social energy I have on a given day varies somewhat widely. Some days when I'm grocery shopping or handling other errands in public, I have only enough capacity for me to get my things done quickly and get home. If some random person is insistent on trying to strike up a conversation with me in the grocery store or wherever, it can ruin my entire day's plans because I find myself in a position where I can either:
A: Try to finish the rest of my errands and risk having a full blown panic attack in public or...
B: Abandon my plans and go home because my mental energy is reaching its limit and try again another day.
"This is why they said you gotta be decent at reading people." You might say.
Well the problem with that is I don't "come off" as autistic, and apparently people find me approachable for reasons I can't fathom. People regularly fail to be able to read me when I absolutely don't want to be talked to, and on plenty of occasions it has completely derailed my day when someone tries to lock me into a conversation when I cannot handle it.
Please properly consider how you might affect the other person.
