About five years ago, it was 2AM in a little ski town at the bottom of the Earth. I was sitting, squished, in a taxi van, with several fruity characters. On my right a man in a dinosaur costume drifted off to sleep. In the seats in front of me, a couple in studded leather were making out. Behind me was the girl who asked me to lick LSD off her hand five hours earlier. She stared out the window, clutching a drink bottle. All of these people are sky-divers. I met them that night. “Wanna come to a dress-up party?” My good friend, who works operations on ski fields, had asked. “Why not? It’s only a Tuesday.” I responded.
Most of what occurred that night I have told again and again, to syphon laughs out of friends. I fell for a girl, as we sat staring up at the beautiful full moon, discussing poetry - as cliché as that sounds. A man arrived, dressed as a magician, with a rabbit in his hat. Except that the rabbit was real. And that it was dead. Many occasions throughout the night, I stood motionless, gazing at the ground, surrounded by people in ridiculous costumes, thinking I had uncovered some deep insight into the inner workings of the human mind, when in reality I just loved drugs.
Despite my hedonism, I did have one lasting realisation that has stuck with me from that night, and it had nothing to do with any insight into my own mind, my own self, or identity. It had to do with simple manners.
When I hopped out of the van, I said to the person in the passenger seat, who was paying for the taxi, “Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate it.”
I’ve said many things in my entire life that I thought had meaning, or significance, or weight. But that simple “thank you”, felt like the most sincere thing I had ever said. I remember watching the van leave, suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude. These people I have only just met, have offered me a lift home, free of charge. It was a simple thing. But I really appreciated it.
As I walked inside, and prepared for the hours lying in bed, neither awake nor asleep, in worlds both beautiful and horrific, I wondered about many things. Why don't people mean it when they say thank you? What would happen if you started saying thank you to strangers like you just did? What if you did it everyday, every time you were grateful for something?
It was a gradual process, but from that experience, watching the glowing taxi lights drift off into the night, I have tried to alter my interactions with the passer-by, the barista in the café, and the uber-driver who’s just trying to make some extra-bucks on the side. Only a smile is necessary; a quick question about their morning. Even some basic shit about the weather works. When I was an arrogant late-teenager, I scoffed at small-talk. Disparaged it as ‘superficial’ or ‘corporate’. A lesser form of conversation that those who cannot comprehend the deepest qualities of the universe use to get through their pathetic existence.
It was harsh and poisonous. Obviously I wasn’t always an asshole to strangers. I probably wasn’t even often an asshole to strangers. However there were many times, when being politely asked something I turned away, put my headphones in, or pulled my phone out. “Your conversation is not worthy of my time”, the thought went. It allowed me to not engage with the rabble of the street, as horrible as that sounds. We mature, and I hope I did. Although I am not always successful, I now try to engage with strangers in an open and positive manner.
It became easier once I developed the value, trickled down from my parents, that above all else, your relationships with others is the fundamental building block for happiness. It’s not your job, how cool your social media profile looks, or the epic stuff you do on the weekend. It’s how you deal with people, and how they deal with you. The deal is always two-way, you can never control how another person will act, but you can always change how you act. But the important (often overlooked) finding in the psychological literature is that it is not only how you treat others close to you that affects well-being, but how you also treat strangers.
If you take a moment to greet, thank, and express gratitude to strangers, overall positive affect appears to increase. Researchers conducted a study on commuters using a shuttle to get to work, where the control group would not interact with the shuttle driver, compared to the experimental group who would. They found that the experimental group experienced greater positive affect. The researchers of another study suggest that efficiency in interactions with strangers (rushing to get your morning coffee) may be “overrated”. They found that people who took time to engage with the barista, compared to those who optimised for efficiency, experienced greater positive affect and also social belonging. Importantly, the outcome seems to hold even in shy people, who are more likely to experience anxiety - an aspect of negative emotion - before interacting with strangers.
Dune and colleagues (2007) suggest that one of the reasons for these beneficial outcomes may be positive self-presentation, or ‘putting your best face forward’. When interacting with strangers, one usually promotes the best aspects of themselves, like traits they deem ethical, or socially desirable, such as humour. Interestingly, they found that ‘putting your best face forward’, in the same way one might with strangers, may help enhance interactions with your romantic partners. I think one factor might be that when interacting with strangers one is less likely to complain or share their grievances about something in their own lives, which brings down the collective mood. If you refrain from focussing on insignificant grievances in your interactions with your romantic partner, this likely improves the quality of these interactions.
Now, plenty of religions have in their doctrines the practice of loving others, even strangers, simply because they exist, like you. But why might it be difficult to interact positively with strangers? Does a barrier exist that may prevent one from doing so?
As humans, over hundreds of thousands of years, we evolved not just in individual competition with each other, but as groups in competition with other groups - as tribes fighting and cooperating for resources. Those that were more successful, more ruthless, more savvy, survived and increased their population-size, eliminating the weaker tribes. For the individual, for you to survive as an organism within this greater organism, you needed to make sure you expressed your love of those that looked like you, and your disgust for those that didn’t. If you failed to do so, you may get ostracised from your tribe as a traitor. And that usually meant death.
These forces, in-group and out-group bias, are still as strong as ever; not just because they’re natural and have evolved with us over millennia, but more importantly, because people don’t purposefully act against these instincts. When people get in an elevator, pass someone on the street, or buy groceries, they often see others that are unlike them in some way. If you set about seeing differences between yourself and others, you’ll see them everywhere. You’ll unintentionally isolate yourself from everyday people that, in their essence, are no different to what you are. They go through life with the same desires - to find meaning from their relationships and their work. Just because they have blonde hair and you have black, just because they vote right and you vote left, just because they’re a woman and you're a man, means very little to the things that actually matter. You both love your kids, right? You both experience the same kind of things.
In my experience, when you act positively and openly with someone you've just met, you usually have a good encounter. Even if you never see them again, you’ll be left with a warmth that lasts. And unlike drugs and other modern addictions, you don’t develop a tolerance for this behaviour, you’ll keep reaping its benefits.
Chur,
The Delinquent Academic