chit chat challenge wrap up

10+ days, hundreds of convos, thousands of dopamine hits

Your AI-free reminder that you can find or create joy while also feeling fear, rage, despair, and other prickly crap.

A few thoughts as we wrap up 10 days of talking to strangers: the inaugural Chit Chat Challenge, a collab with Rob Walker of The Art of Noticing. No rules or requirements, just have any kind or length of conversation with one person, previously unknown to you, once a day, every day for 10 days (or more).

Some thoughts and observations:

Where previously I would have a conversation then carry on with my hit of dopamine, now I carefully consider the interaction. I workshop it in my head, examining how I could have been a better partner or what other follow-up questions I could’ve asked. I’m not just trying to create a connection, but to improve my skills so I can create a better connection. I’m also trying to become more aware of opportunities to engage more people in conversation.

I think I might do better in non-social situations, such as random encounters in shops, restaurants, or on the street than in so-called social events where chit-chat is expected. For example, at a neighborhood social recently, a woman I’ll call Goldie sat across the table from me. She wasn’t very interested in talking, at least to me and my husband. The way the seating and people arrangements worked out, the three of us were on our own little island in a sea of animated conversations. I tried all of the talking to strangers tips and tricks I’ve learned in the myriad books, articles, and Ted talks I’ve recently consumed. Her response was not nothing, but not a conversation either. More like me asking Goldie questions about herself and her interests while she offered a brief response and nothing else. It felt awkward, but I made the decision early on to not take anything personally and see how far I could get us along a conversational path. The answer: not very.

Striking up a conversation in the gauntlet labyrinth line at T.J. Maxx seems easier and more fulfilling than whatever that pulling teeth social scenario (which included cheese and wine) was. So of course I over-analyzed what I could have done better with Goldie. Could I have asked more thoughtful questions? Did it seem like I was prying? Did she simply not like us?

I way more many successful conversations. Like the one with a woman who was looking for the trolley stop near Forsyth Park and we soon navigated our chat to how much we love Avelo, the small airline with direct flights between Savannah, GA (where I live) and New Haven, CT (where my family lives).

I heard so many great stories about other people connecting with strangers. Heidi, pardon me for butchering this, but the tale you told of traipsing all around San Diego, in the wee hours of the morning, with a dancer from Tahiti you’d just met, is magical. And the hundreds of anecdotes from the official chit chat chat, including Emily, who met another Emily, both Emilys (Emilies?) born on their grandfather’s birthday (grandfathers’ birthdays?). (What a grammatically trying sentence for someone without an editor and who refuses to use AI.)

A great conversation starter with strangers is talking about their best stranger conversations.

One of my biggest takeaways is that making someone laugh isn’t always the most humane path, like the guy working the self check area at Kroger (yes, I use self check, and no, that does not disqualify a conversation with an employee) who said he was pleased it was almost time to go home. Instead of reaching for a silly quip, I could have asked him about his day, and centered him in the conversation.

Also, hello, is everybody talking to strangers now? Since we began this collaboration, so many articles have been published about the activity. In this one from the New York Times daily newsletter on May 2 Melissa Kirsch tells of Stefan who approached her and other solo attendees at a music event, “We’re all here solo, so we should talk to one another.” Stefan asserts that “people simply want fun and interesting things to happen to them.” Towards that end, chatting with strangers can prove to be way more fun and interesting than whatever passive scrolling is happening on your phone.

One of my favorite ideas about talking to strangers comes from Dr. Maya Rossignac-Milon and Dr Erica Boothby in their NYT opinion piece on April 20. Their quest in a conversation with a stranger is “What could we create together in this moment?” They consider stranger interactions like improv: a yes, and .. proposition, an opportunity to riff. While that isn’t feasible or achievable in most situations, I like how they frame a conversation as something unique built by everyone taking part. The value of the experience, they argue, comes from the power of something created in conjunction with others.

Lisa mersky offers a Chit Chat Challenge side quest. She writes, “As a habitual talker to strangers, the challenge I set for myself during the chitchat challenge was to deepen my relationship with my ‘familiars.’” Lisa, not only do I adore this idea, but I love the use of the word “familiars” and am officially adopting it for all of the people in my life who I know, but ddon’t know. First up is the well-put-together woman I think of as “Misty,” who sits on a bench near my house, smoking cigarettes, talking on the phone, and drinking from a giant insulated tumbler for hours every day.

Update on my post office experience. This is a postscript to my interactions with a curmudgeoness who often waits on me at my local post office. I’ve been trying unsuccessfully for years to get her to smile, laugh, or converse with me. I found myself back at the post office last week after I spied dog-shaped hairclips while strolling Aldi’s Aisle of Shame™. My sister has a mini dachshund and a bulldog, both of which were in the little package. I boxed them up and walked to the post office. My curmudgeoness was nowhere to be seen. As her coworker weighed my package I noticed with horror that I’D MISSPELLED MY SISTER’S NAME. I made a sharp intake of breath, and said something aloud along those lines. The woman waiting on me looked up, slightly incredulous. “Did you say you spelled your sister’s name wrong?” I managed a squeaky yes before diving into a pool of shame. “Just blame it on me,” she shrugged. “I don’t care if you throw me under the bus, I’ll never meet your sister,” then her eyes bore into me; “but you have to explain that her own sister can’t spell her name correctly.”

Now it was my turn to look incredulous. I can’t get this woman’s colleague to acknowledge a gift of flowers, but she’s willing to let me toss her under the mail truck to spare my relationship with my sister?!?!?!

Epilogue:

I’m not done with my own chit-chat challenge. There are over 8,291,033,716 other people on this planet and the more we connect with one another in real life the more chances we all have for little hits of joy and humanity.

Stay tuned for more.

I’m always open to ideas, suggestions, shenanigans, tomfoolery, collaborations, cheese, snacks, and field trips.

You can find my art here and here. I offer custom workshops and design. I am the proud guardian/custodian of a 17 3/4 year old cheeseburger named Patty.

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