Yesterday I was at a restaurant with my friends. This Asian guy came in and sat near us. I noticed him speaking Korean on the phone. I consume a lot of Korean content, so this got me really excited. On a whim, I decided to go up to him and chat. I introduced myself, and he invited me to sit with him if I wanted to, even though he was a bit awkward, lol. He ordered some stuff for me. I found out he’s here in Switzerland for work, and we had a good talk. I ended up hanging out with him around the city. We exchanged contact info and are seeing each other again today after he gets off work. It was my first time doing something like this, and I honestly didn’t know meeting people could be so spontaneous and organic.
Congrats. Modern society has neutered us to the point where doing something this natural feels exceptionally daring. Of course, there’s also those of us who are introverted, for whom walking up to a stranger is a genuine challenge.
How did it feel ? how freeing ?
I wouldn’t even say it’s a challenge to talk to strangers. I can do it fine, and do it all day at my job. It’s just, I don’t feel the desire to do so simply for the sake of doing it. If I’m sat in a park reading a book on a Saturday morning, I can pretty much guarantee you I do not want to talk to people, yet you’ll get people who just want to plop down next to you on the bench, let out a sigh and say “Hoo, boy what a week, eh?,” and expect you to put down what you were doing to keep the conversation going.
Think about this. When they made the movie ‘The Net’ in 1995, they showed how oddball Sandra Bullock was by having her order food with her computer.
In that far off past, even if you were introverted, you couldn’t function without doing almost all your transactions live and face-to-face.
I wasn’t of food-ordering age in 95, I’ll have to watch that one. Can’t get enough of Sandra Bullock