Talking To Strangers
Editor’s Note: This is my very first post from 2020, and it was on someone else’s content page. I know I’ve been gone for a while, so I thought it would be fun to take a look at what I had to say years ago. Plus, you’ll get to see my current thoughts as I “edit” the post. Also, editor = 24-year-old Shresta, lol.
Hi! My name is Shresta Reddy Chemarla [let’s put some respect on the ancestors], and welcome to the second written blog at Sorry No Free Clout. So, obviously, I’m not insert person’s name that I wrote for. No - I’m just a stranger on the other side of the screen, who’s hoping you’ll enjoy and think about what I have to say.
So let’s talk about coronavirus, as if we don’t have enough of that, but hear me out, this might be good. COVID-19 has altered many aspects of my life, as I’m sure it has impacted yours. As a twenty-year-old college student, the most noticeable has been my social life. The social landscape has been strange these few months; It has become commonplace for us to look to the internet to fulfill our desire, our need, to interact with others. Especially with apps like Tik Tok and Instagram, it’s easy to sit on our phones and judge others or, on the other hand, think we understand their true intentions and morals based on their smiling faces and actions on-screen.
However, I’m getting ahead of myself here, so let me tell you a bit about my quarantine. The bit that doesn’t involve Tik Tok and mindless binge-watching.
During this quarantine, I’ve had the incredible gift of having more time, so I’ve gone back to my favorite hobby, reading! In less than ten months’ time, I’ll be entering the workforce, so it’s time for me to incorporate more nonfiction books to explore and interpret the world from my little reading nook. [Note: you don’t need to introduce more nonfiction into your life… that’s not what makes you an adult, Shre.] I restarted a book I picked up ages ago by Malcolm Gladwell called Talking to Strangers. [the funniest part of this is that I don’t think I had actually finished this book when I had written this. Don’t worry, I’ve read it now and it’s one of my favorites.] The book challenges our very basis of understanding others around us - familiar faces and strangers. As humans, we often choose to believe those closest to us, to trust them, to have faith in their sweet words. Meanwhile, the opposite is true of strangers, we’d like to think we can jump to conclusions and judge them based on flimsy social cues. If you know me, you know I often say my gift is understanding those around me [it’s actually that I think I’m psychic], but this book has challenged what I think of my intuitive aptitude.
The way we think about the world is naive. We think we understand others, but do we? Malcolm Gladwell suggests, in fact, he insists that we do not understand each other the way we think we do. Gladwell emphasizes that humans default to believing others instantly, and only when the evidence is overwhelmingly against them do we begin to doubt them. In fact, Gladwell exemplifies this through stories of people around Adolf Hitler, Bernie Madoff, Jerry Sandusky, and many others to show that strangers are better judges of character than those closest to us. So, how does that make you feel? Are you reevaluating how you interact with others in a social setting? Are you questioning your own instincts as I did? [too many rhetorical questions, jeez]
Here’s my challenge for you: the next time you interact with a friend, ask yourself if you trust their words and the intent behind them, or do you simply not have enough doubts about them to prove otherwise. Although, who am I to tell you what to do? After all, I’m just a stranger on the other side of the screen hoping you’ll like what I have to say.
Sincerely,
Shresta [got to add it for the brand]
