A stranger asked me to have a conversation; here's why I'm glad I agreed

I was sitting in a Starbucks the other day, typing away on the laptop open in front of me, pausing to look out the window and watch the cars roll by every few minutes, when a young guy walked over and just started talking to me.

Him: “Do you mind if I talk to you a bit? Would you like to have a conversation?”

In our day and age, sitting and talking with someone you’ll probably never see again is oddly refreshing. It just feels good.

Me: “Um, sure. Have a seat. Are you working on a project or something? Writing something?”

Him: “No. I’m just trying to talk to more people. I used to be really socially awkward, so a few years ago I decided that I should just talk to people when I have a few extra minutes.”

Channeling Albert

I thought it was a fantastic idea and said as much; then I asked if he came up with it on his own. He said that he had.

I told him that back in the 1930s the psychologist Albert Ellis did a similar thing for a similar reason. Basically Ellis — then a very shy young man in his 20s — would go to the park and talk to every single woman he saw. All ages, shapes, and sizes. He reported that it helped him immensely, essentially curing him of his crippling social anxiety.

I brought up Ellis not to undercut the creativity of his idea but to underscore the fact that he was on to something very real. Great minds think alike, you know.

I asked him if he thought it had helped him, and he, like Ellis, confirmed that it certainly had.

Stop me if you've heard this

He told me he was Catholic and was waiting for a Jehovah’s Witness who was meeting him for a debate. I didn’t ask him how exactly they set this debate or how they crossed paths, but I can only imagine that they were discussing theology online and decided to continue their argument IRL.

It really sounds like a good start to a joke, doesn’t it? A Catholic and a Jehovah’s Witness walk into a Starbucks for a theological debate.

I talked with him for about 15 minutes. He told me he was 18 and that he was in middle school during COVID, to which I responded, with my palm holding my forehead, “My God, you are so young and I am so old.” We talked a lot about his experiences speaking with people. How some were more open and others less so, and how he thought other people in his generation would benefit from doing something similar.

I told him that I think the Zoomers’ emotions were calibrated differently from their elders' due to technology and the social isolation it has brought along with it. He agreed.

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Communication breakdown

He also shared a theory about how we perceive one another in our technological age. He explained that in his opinion we tend to project the most extreme views onto those with whom we disagree before we even interact, with the result that we adjust our own views to be more extreme. Everyone is constantly doing this, which is why communication gets worse and worse.

I found this compelling. I had never thought of it that way, and while I need to ponder it more to know if I really agree or not, I think there must be some truth to it. I also think, due to his age, he has a more personal insight into his generation’s sense of the world than I. He is a native to his strange world, while I am only a documentarian noting the ways of these peculiar people we call Zoomers.

Listen up

I like talking to people. Truthfully, I like doing the listening more than the talking. It might be because I’m a writer and always looking for inspiration, or maybe it’s because I’m perpetually curious about everyone and everything. Whatever it is, I like sitting there, just listening, taking in what they have to share, trying to figure them out. If you ask people about themselves, they will just talk and talk, and you can learn about all these other corners in all these other lives.

Our world can feel very internal these days with the internet and all the text-based interaction we suffer through. It’s easy to feel alone and estranged from everyone else. In our day and age, sitting and talking with someone you’ll probably never see again is oddly refreshing. It just feels good.

I really enjoyed my time talking with Zoomer Albert Ellis. I was fairly uninspired when he sat down, and our discussion was invigorating in a way that only human interaction can be. I learned something about the Zoomers and their social struggles as seen through his eyes. And it was heartening to see this young guy trying to better himself in the real world. Perhaps the kids — or at least some of them — are all right.

After a few minutes, a big black truck pulled up and a slender guy in his 40s with graying hair hopped out. The Zoomer across from me concluded that this must be his debate partner and said goodbye. He met him outside on the patio, where they sat at a black table, across from one another, for quite some time. I went back to my work, writing. Every few minutes I glanced out the window to see the a spirited theological debate, politely raging, IRL.