I must look friendly, because people often tell me their life stories. When I lived in SF, homeless people kept hugging me (after a few moments of conversation). I think it's because I am a bit of a munchkin, with a matronly silhouette. I must seem non-threatening and comforting or something.

I don't mind listening to stranger's life stories, it passes the time. My husband doesn't like it, though. I inherited this from my Dad, who loves striking up conversations with strangers. When I was a kid it embarrassed me. But now...

I talk to everyone. Gregg jokes that I could do 10 minutes with a parking meter. He's always asking, "What did you have to talk about with the busboy?!" (Gregg takes a more reserved approach to strangers -- only talk to them if you're on fire and they have the key to the only fire extinguisher or it's otherwise urgently necessary.)

It's cheaper than a shrink.

I hear ya. Despite my shyness, I frequently find myself engaged in conversations by total strangers while on a line or in waiting rooms. Our daughter loves to ask total strangers questions. We're in a dilemma, because while we're glad her ADHD and Asperger's Syndrome haven't kept her from being gregarious and charming, we were raised not to talk to strangers. We've explained to her that while most people are nice, you can't always tell who's nice and who's not just by looking at them, so it's wise to tread lightly when addressing or being addressed by strangers in public (including on planes and trains) or make an excuse and walk away whenever possible. Yes, we're such a friendly, trusting family... :-)

"We all need to talk about metaphysics, but those who know us well want details and specifics; strangers allow us to operate more vaguely on a cosmic scale."

Isn't that pretty much what we do in commenting on this blog? Except that it gets repeated every week when the columns appear...

When I'm on a plane, I'm usually listening to my iPod and crocheting or reading. A stranger would have to really want to talk to get by the fortress of anti-chit-chat I erect.

strangers allow us to operate more vaguely on a cosmic scale."

I actually think some people tell strangers stuff they'd never tell a person close to them. They do it to get it off their chest with a person who's "safe" -- who doesn't know their boss, their mother, their cheating spouse. Or maybe they feel they can get a truly objective opinion from a stranger.

> some people tell strangers stuff they'd
> never tell a person close to them. They
> do it to get it off their chest with a person
> who's "safe"

Yes, Amy: We know what you mean.

Fight Club talks about life better than us all - The narrator calls them "Single serving friends"; someone to talk to as long as the flight lasts, then discarded like the napkin and spork.

I actually made a pen pal on an AmTrak trek from New York to Michigan many moons ago. I don't know what it was but this older woman and I just clicked. I usually don't like to converse with people while traveling. I sleep or watch movies on my Ipod but somehow she managed to get through to me and we kept in touch for quite some time after that. We tapered off after a while but she was a great pen pal.

I am scared to fly (but do). I usually play suduko or read a book (lately, Amy's) so I have something to focus on other than turbulence or weird plane noises. Not too often is it I have a conversation with another passenger other than "Is that a normal sound?". I can't focus long enough.

Although...the other day, there was a woman dressed in Navy Blues - and I got to see her bra! I thought she was an Officer of some type (she actually worked for a government "Department of") and her blouse was unbuttoned in the front - I had noticed when she was putting her luggage up in the overhead storage bin. So I "pssssttt"'d her and told her I could see her bra because she missed a button - all in the non-verbal lip and hand gestures of course.

We chatted for about a half an hour, but mostly about business', floods, and restaurants in Napa. That was a record for me.

I rarely travel solo, so I usually have someone to talk to that I actually know, but I have, every so often, struck up conversations with strangers in grocery lines and the like. They're short and sweet, and then I never see them again, and that's okay.

Like MonicaP above, I'm usually pretty absorbed in a book or trying to nap when I'm travelling by myself, so it's unlikely I'll talk to anyone for any length of time. Back in my active duty days it was a little different. On the contract troop plane heading out to Okinawa (a beat up 747), a lot of passengers got chatty, but then we all had something in common to chat about.

My friend and her husband met on a plane flight from Denver to NYC. They sat next to eachother and just started chatting, and decided to exchange phone numbers by the end of the flight. 11 years later, they are still very happily married with a great kid.
We're all so busy with our lives that we rarely get the opportunity to just sit and chat with anyone - friends or complete strangers. I think plane flights can be a nice way of fulfilling that need we all have to connect to someone. It's life presenting you with an opportunity to be pleasant to another human, even if it is just to politely let them know their underware is showing!
My funniest flight experience was definitely the woman who sat next to me on a flight from Las Vegas to Baltimore. She was very friendly and we chatted a bit. About 30 minutes into the flight we hit some wicked turbulence, the worst I've been in. She grabbed my hand and said "Pray with me sister, we are gonna DIE". OK, so no so comforting to me, but I was able to talk her off the cliff and calm her down. And in the process, I felt I was doing someone some good.

Back in 1987 I was taking a Greyhound bus from Utah (after visiting my uncle) to Washington, DC. As the bus passed through Nebraska, an older man sat next to me and struck up a conversation about his farm on the Platte River. Some time after he got off, an grandmother from Omaha got on at Grand Island and talked with me all the way to Omaha. She was very nice and even invited me to dinner, which I had to decline due to not wanting to lose my bus ticket (though I'm not sure I would have).

Somewhere in Illinois a young woman was sitting across from me and asked me where we were on the map I was holding. I started to talk to her, and she invited me to sit next to her. We started chatting and telling jokes and she let me listen to a comedy tape on a Walkman. As the bus passed through Indiana we both got sleepy and she asked if she could lean against my shoulder. From the way she leaned I sensed that she wanted to be held, so I put an arm around her, and then she reciprocated. We must have dozed off for a couple of hours like this before she had to get off in Toledo. She even invited me to stay with her, but once again I was afraid I'd have to pay to get back on the bus later, so I had to decline. I think I must have disappointed her :(

This all seemed quite unusual in a country where strangers are usually reluctant to talk to one another. It must be something about a long bus journey that leads to people opening up like this.

So I "pssssttt"'d her and told her I could see her bra because she missed a button - all in the non-verbal lip and hand gestures of course.

Feebie, you are cool. I'll always tell somebody when they have something amiss. I'd sure want to know.

Thanks!

Ya there's nothing like walking around with your unmentionables hanging in the wind - or having a side of salad in your teeth, only to get home and observe in horror. "How many people.....".

As uncomfortable as it can sometimes be for me to bring their attention to these things, I KNOW I'd want someone to do the same for me.

:)

I'm like you, NicoleK. People seem to want to spill their guts to me with little or no prodding on my part (not complaining, because most of the time it makes for great conversation). I get most of that from my dad, I think, who can talk to anyone. About ten years ago, my dad and I were on a plane to Amsterdam to meet my mom on her way back from New Delhi. Our seatmate on the eight-hour flight was a man named Charlie. He had met this woman on the internet and they had been talking for over a year. He was flying to Kiev to propose to her, sight unseen. I found out all kinds of things about him (he was from Appleton, Wisconsin, and frequented a restaurant that my dad loved when he was there where you choose and cook your own steaks) and what he had learned about Kiev. Including that it was best to pack your own toilet paper. Made for really interesting conversation and was a good way to pass all that time.

I don't speak with anyone. I just look out the window or read a book. The one time I wasn't "myself" was a couple of years ago when I flew on a Halloween night in costume going to a weekend party. I wasn't in costume during check-in, at least no make-up. My costume was a Living Dead. I didn't get the window seat I wanted, getting the aisle. I told the woman who would be next to me "I didn't get the window seat I wanted, and lucky you, you get next to me." She smiled. I knew it would be disturbing for someone to be sitting next to a Zombie, so I made light of the situation as an acknowledgment then kept to myself. Fortunately it was only a 2 hour flight.

I talk to people. All the damned time.

The cashier at the grocery store. I ask random customers in the store if they know which type of meat to use for a recipe I am going to make. I don't know why but I am always talking to people I have never met. It's entertaining and just when I am in the bitchiest, most misanthropic mood ever and strike up a conversation with someone behind me in Target and suddenly I feel better. It somehow connects you to humanity to feel like we can talk to each other.

Disney World is great for making fast friends because you are both in the same situation over which you can commiserate/bond:

You're on Disney Vaca Day 2 and in line for Splash Mountain for the millionth time behind all the 500 Brazilian kids doing some kind of tour program. It's hot and humid as ballz. You are surrounded by whining kids. Etc. Then in 45 minutes (if you're lucky) it's all over and you go off to Space Mountain to make another new friend.

There I was... An exceedingly handsome bachelor in my middle-30s (the middle-30s part is very true)... Sitting in the airport in Phuket (or somewhere in Thailand) with my feet up on a pack of freshly-brined scuba gear, waiting for the trip back to the states. It seems that as a rule, Asians leave Americans alone when they're visiting Asia. This recommends the continent as a vacation destination. There had been one night in Bangkok (because of that song) followed by 10 days on a dive boat, socializing with chirpy strangers (Americans and Europeans) between psychedelically beautiful dives, and it was nice to be silent again.

And this middle-aged woman comes up. American. (TEXAN, it would shortly prove.) Beehive-y updo. Excessively-bejeweled wedding ring. And she drops (heavily, expansively) onto the seat beside me in a rustling thicket of synthetic fabrics and a dense waft of commercial scents, and waits three beats of a disco classic. And then, in faux-softness, a voice laden with neediness, and with the kind of proximal invitation to eye contact that even a contentedly-blind garden mole can't decline, she asks "Do you speak English?"...

Now, I was smart enough and sober enough to pull the ol' "Nein! Nooplay! ¿Parlay-voodle frogtalk?" trick... But in my lap was a splendidly distracting Clancy in bright, obvious cover art. (Language: English. And I mean ING-fucking-GLACE.) I was so busted. Cornered. Hosed.

"Uh.... Yeah. Hi, howarya? I'm Crid..." with a handshake, the limpest I would share that year.

"Hello Crid, I'm Marjorie.... From Dallas. Y'know," she said, dropping her chin to glance to and fro, singing her pitch as if sharing a precious secret, "I hate traveling alone."

Even with the jetstream, Bangkok to L.A. is sixteen and a half hours. This was before the attacks, understand? I was looking forward to drinking and watching a bad Keanu Reeves movie on those little screens. And my expensive workingman's vacation was being cut short. Because no matter how glorious the foreign paradise, Americans think "A stranger is a friend you haven't yet met." (The internet credits that sentiment to the Irish. And we know that there are a lot of Irish descendants in the Lone Star State.)

"Well, Honey, I fuckin' love traveling alone!", I told her.

Not really. In the few minutes until departure, sweltering with uncomfortable closeness in the bustling terminal, she told all about her kids (now forgotten) and her husband and his business (now forgotten) and her purpose in Thailand (now forgotten) and all the rest. And then we boarded.

And she was in coach; while I, in an expensive, happenstance indulgence I've yet to repeat in trans-Pacific travel, had booked business class. The wine was superb, the film was loathsome, and the tail of the vacation had been rescued.

Ugly Americans, man. They're brutal. If it had been that blond, maybe it woulda been cool.

Some of the best parenting advice I have ever gotten came from elderly couples I said hello to.

I agree with Gretchen. it connects us to each other. For this same reason when I am out with someone I offer to pay for gas so I can go inside and do it. I don't like separating the services we receive from the people who are providing them. It feels wrong somehow.

Gretchen, I talk all the time too. It's fun, you learn stuff, and it passes time in an interesting way. And if it turns out not to be interesting, you can find a way out almost every time.

My most memorable of these flight stories is the one when I was returning home from handling the details of my brother's estate. He had died suddenly in an accident and we were all in shock. The man sitting next to me began to talk, taking my mind completely off the sadness of the past week. We talked from Colorado to damned near San Francisco. He finally came up for air and asked what I had been doing in Colorado. I thought for a moment about lying to him and sparing him the details, but it sort of flooded out of me. He apologized for "going on and on about his mundane issues" when I was going through this awful time, but it had really helped me to get my mind off of it.

The other story I immediately thought of after reading everyone else's little stories was about the old gentleman I met in my local grocery store. He couldn't reach the canned prunes so I got one down for him, then chatted with him in the canned fruit aisle for 45 minutes. I live in Morro Bay, a fishing village between L.A. and San Francisco. I learned that he has lived here for 75 years, since he coasted into town on fumes in his 1930 something ford looking for work. He worked at the abalone processing plant, and on the ranch that took up 90% of Morro Bay before there were any houses in town. It was a totally fascinating story about my town and its history, all because of a chance meeting with an old guy who couldn't reach the prunes. Lovely.

Try asking questions of people. It's so interesting to hear their stories, and takes you out of your own world for a few moments.

I'm very social and often converse with strangers, but somehow, not on a plane. I usually feel so cramped and in the way of the other people next to me that it seems the least I can do is not bother them by talking. Of course, if they really indicated they wanted to talk, I would, but I find most of time, others are like me and try to stay quiet and inconspicuous.

When I was single, I always hoped for one of those "meet-cute" airplane moments when a charming, good-looking man would be seated next to me and strike up a witty, flirty conversation, but that never happened.

I usually prefer to keep to myself, but recently I was on a flight next to two (unrelated) unaccompanied minors. The whole flight was stream of consciousness from them: What is Bloody Mary mix for...Do you want to see a picture of my dog...my daddy is in the Marines...what is your favorite Shakira song...etc. It was so sweet and genuine, a real treat for me since I am not around kids much.

"When I'm on a plane, I'm usually listening to my iPod and"

You have time to get your earbuds in? I can have music in ears, book in hand, eyeshades on, and they still show me their surgical scars.

Disney World is great for making fast friends because you are both in the same situation over which you can commiserate/bond

Totally, Gretchen. I was in Orlando last month, and I was at EPCOT for a day. I went back into the park later that night to see if the wait for Soarin' was any shorter. It was down to an hour, so I got in line behind this great family from upstate New York: mom, dad, girl about 15, and boy about 10. The great thing about waiting for that ride is that they have interactive games on screens in the hallway: you know, everyone leans to the left at once to control a bird through an obstacle course kind of thing. I was reading Dracula on my iPhone and the girl asked me what I was reading, and that got us started on a conversation about books on her reading list and what I had read when I was her age and what I recommended for her. Books'll get me going on a good long conversation better than anything else. Anyway, great family, nice, polite, interesting kids. Really made the wait much better than it could have been.

Also: Soarin' is AWESOME. Totally recommend it, even though the wait is always really freaking long if you don't have the fast pass. I got the seat dead center in the first row in the middle section, which, as far as I could tell, was the best seat in the place. Really cool. Also cool: the newly refurbished Spaceship Earth ride. I swear those animatronic people looked like they would start talking to you.

I find that now days most people just put on their headphones and space out. Some try to sleep. Once or twice a long time ago when I flew often I got people's life stories. Now the only conversation is generally when the staff is doing something stupid.

I hate the ugly American tourist too. It seems like at any thing I do while vacationing the loud obnoxious one always is an American. I like that people have more often then not assumed I was some other nationality. Generally British or German.

It's funny, both times I've been in Europe, people have warmed nicely to me and my family, while talking to us about "obnoxious Americans" on our tours and bus trips. It seemed to take them a full beat to remember that we were American, too. My dad and I got on famously with our Scottish bus driver when we were on a trip up to St. Andrews (Mecca for my father). There was this horribly annoying couple on our bus. Actually, the wife was super-annoying, the husband was just resigned to his fate. She talked really loudly the whole time about the most random things that she seemed to want the entire bus to know. She was late getting back at every stop. We were about to leave St. Andrews after a very long day, and the lady for once wasn't the last one on board, but she was still late, and she actually left the bus to go souvenir shopping while we were waiting on the last passengers. Brian, our bus driver, was a very nice man (and full of information), but even he couldn't refrain from making some jokes when we finally had everyone back on the bus. I think Amy's talked about this on here before, but Europeans are actually quite nice to you if you don't act like an idiot. Even the French I met there were super nice and helpful to me. And the Scottish are just too adorable for words. Edinburgh is an awesome city.

Here's something both recent and relevant:
http://www.consequentialstrangers.com/2010/03/07/theparadoxoffleetingrelationshipsinsmallplaces/#respond

You have time to get your earbuds in? I can have music in ears, book in hand, eyeshades on, and they still show me their surgical scars.

I generate an aura of "don't fucking talk to me."

Hey, Amy. This isn't really the place for this, but here's one for the "Unbelievably stupid and over-protective parent" file.

A friend of mine was walking in the dog park with his two beautiful (and thank God for small favors, very friendly and patient) huskies. A child (around six) saw the dogs and came running up and threw his arms around one of his dogs.

My friend was startled. It happened so fast. As he explains it, he was looking to the front, along the path, and the child ambushed the dogs from the side.

"You can't just come running up to a dog you don't know like that!" he said. And started to explain that even friendly dogs can bite when they're startled or approached suddenly by someone they don't know. But his fat-assed mother came barreling up screaming bloody murder that the man actually spoke to her precious little boy!

Well, gee, someone had to. He placed himself in danger. A husky could easily mangle a six-year-old, and a pair of them would make short work of him.

Her precious little boy is going to be precious little chewstick if his mother doesn't start telling him how act in public. You'd think dogs would be one of the bases a conscientious mother would cover. Shouldn't she be more worried that her son approached a pair of big dogs without the owner's permission?

Personally, I think she should have said "Thank you" for explaining to her child how to approach a dog safely...if the owner says it's all right to approach.

The Goddess: I like that people get mad at others when the real issue is their own underparenting (letting kid run up to huge dogs).

Yeah. Next time, if the kid runs up to a vicious pair of attack dogs, don't anybody say anything to the kid. Wouldn't want the mother to get mad.

The kid will be ripped to pieces, but at least no strange adults spoke to him.