People Want To Talk To You
Why people treat us how we treat ourselves
“Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me,
why should you not speak to me?
And why should I not speak to you?”
— Walt Whitman
I used to struggle with talking to strangers. Even if I wanted to compliment someone on their shirt, I usually didn’t. I told myself that I was an introvert and shouldn’t bother. While it’s true that I tend to be socially shy, the real truth was this: I was scared to talk to people because I believed that I wasn’t worth talking to.
When I went to Spain last year, I remember sitting cross-legged on a beach in Cádiz. My black leather journal was lying in my lap. As I sat there writing, I saw a small group of guys circled up near the water. They were playing soccer. Fútbol. Right at the spot on the shore where there was just enough water to wet their ankles.
At first, my mind went back to my days playing hockey. Before games, we would always kick a ball around to warm up our legs, bodies, and minds. I smiled. It was one of my favorite things that I forgot was one of my favorite things.
But while I kept watching them play, I had second and third thoughts. Some part of me wanted to ask them if I could join. Another part of me thought about all the reasons against it. “I’m a foreigner, so they won’t accept me.” “I can’t speak perfect Spanish, so I’m not welcome here.” “I’m not as good at soccer as they are. I’m totally gonna mess up the game and boot the ball into the ocean.” “I keep getting weird looks from all these Spaniards.”
Was any of this true? Probably not.
But at the time, I had the self-awareness of a dog licking his own penis. Those thoughts were a thunderstorm, yes, but those thick gray clouds were so familiar that I knew nothing other than living in the invisible reality of self-contempt.
No surprise: I never played soccer that day with the Spaniards. Not because I asked them to play. No. I never walked their way. I rejected myself in assuming that I already wasn’t invited.
Why did this happen?
People Treat You How You Treat You
The story I told myself made me act in a way that confirmed my belief system about myself. I believed that I was an outsider and didn’t belong, so some sinister part of me wanted to preserve that self-concept.
As Aldous Huxley wrote in his 1932 novel Brave New World:
“The mockery made him feel like an outsider; and feeling an outsider he behaved like one, which increased the prejudice against him and intensified the contempt and hostility aroused by his physical defects. Which in turn increased his sense of being alien and alone.”
People treat you how you treat yourself. Whether you realize it or not, the things you tell yourself are the things you tell other people—all without words.
As the adage goes, we see things not as people are but as we are. How we think and how we feel is how we act, and how we act is how we think and how we feel.
By thinking that I didn’t belong in Spain, of course I wouldn’t feel like I belonged there. And by feeling like I didn’t belong there, I never said hola. It was one powerful positive feedback loop that was anything but positive.1
But the thing is, I was more than qualified to belong in Spain. I spoke Spanish for four years. I was more than conversationally competent. I also had some sick soccer skills. All those weird looks I was getting were only weird because I thought they were weird. After all, blue eyes in Spain are a tourist attraction for the locals. People were probably being curious, not judgmental.2
When I look back on this version of myself, I no longer cringe but just feel compassion. It’s ok. If I knew then what I knew now, I’d just tell him that I was being a silly little bitch who was way too much in his head. I’d tell him to get up off his ass and play some soccer. The boys on the beach would’ve loved to add another amigo to their circle. For most of my life I have felt like an outsider, yes. But that’s a poor excuse for not talking to people.
People Want To Talk To You
It took me a while to realize that people do want to talk to you. Even in a world where people perennially stuff their ear canals full of pop music and productivity podcasts on 5x speed. Even in a world where saying hi is the equivalent of bothering someone.
Beyond the beach in Spain, this story showed up in sneaky ways with how I interacted with the world. I used to think that people who had their AirPods in didn’t want to talk to me. I used to judge them and complain about the strange irony of how our loneliness is self-inflicted because we keep doing the very things that isolate us from an already isolated human race.
But now I think different. I understand that they might just want to bust out some Beethoven. I understand that their auditory consumption has nothing to do with my personal desires. Yet I also know that it’s normal to feel hesitant about talking to someone with their AirPods in. Why interrupt them, right?
As I’ve learned, though, none of this should make you think that people don’t want to talk to you. It’s not a very serving story. Sure, people might not want to be bothered at the gym or at a café. But what if they do? What if they’re thinking exactly what you’re thinking?
As Kevin Kelly once wrote:
“Everyone is shy. Other people are waiting for you to introduce yourself to them; they are waiting for you to send them an email; they are waiting for you to ask them on a date. Go ahead.”
As a reminder, I wrote something on a sticky note that I see whenever I walk out of my apartment: “People are shy and want to talk to you. As long as it doesn’t feel forced, go up and talk to them. They want you to.”
Last week, I was sitting by myself at a coffee shop in Austin. While having my reality pierced by the prose of Oscar Wilde, I saw her. A pretty girl with dark brown hair sat down across from me. I peeked over the pages of my book. She was wearing a navy blue dress tattooed with floral patterns. Her hair had these tasteful twirls that fluttered while she wrote in her spiral notebook.
While I sat there pretending to read, I was thinking about everything I just wrote. I decided I was going to talk to her. It didn’t feel forced. She caught my curiosity and seemed like a soulful girl. I wondered what she was writing about. I wondered if she got her dress from her mom.
But what would I say? There were at least twelve things to say to this pretty stranger. Luckily, she had no AirPods in. Following Occam’s Razor, I landed on a riveting question that led us into an engaging conversation about Austin, books, and nature: “What time is it?”
Thanks to
for inspiring this piece.Related Essays
If you liked this essay, you’ll absolutely love two other things I’ve written:
A positive feedback loop is when A produces more of B, which produces more of A. This can be good or bad. But in this case, “positive” is the technical term for a feedback loop where inputs create outputs that lead to more inputs. It’s like a snowball rolling down a hill: more snow, more speed, and then a lot more snow.
For what it’s worth, I was actually speaking Spanish to strangers all the time in Spain. In fact, I even challenged myself to not speak English so I that could become conversationally fluent. It worked. Qué bien. But this day on the beach, I must have fell under a spell of short-term hysteria after spending a night out with Spaniards, who actually don’t go to bed until 5 am.
Enjoyed this essay Baxter. It’s a great message. I really like the personal stories you use to illustrate the main idea. Cool painting at the beginning too.
“What time is it?” is goated.