By Yvonne Boxerman
I love to talk to strangers when I can. I was born in Ireland, a country where everyone seems to have something to say about anything and everything . . . to anyone who will listen! So it’s easy for me to see how engaging with all kinds of people is a rewarding way to live. If someone appears
responsive, I find they are usually glad to talk and sometimes even want to prolong the discussion. It’s as if some of us, especially those already in the grandparent generation, are starved for normal, friendly conversations, even with people we don’t know. A pattern developed during the pandemic
that is still hanging on to some degree, where it obviously became so much more difficult to talk to people in our acute isolation. Five years on, most of us can never forget how we routinely steered away from others when we had to be out and about for essentials. For creatures who need the connections other humans provide, this type of behavior was painful for most of us.
It’s nothing new, but people are always in a rush or otherwise engaged – with their handheld device – to the exclusion of anything and anyone. Haven’t we all seen groups at a restaurant having dinner, each in their own world? Heads down and thumbs flying, holding a device, finding what they’re reading or texting to be so much more interesting than the people they’re with. That seems to be true whether it’s a family or a group of co-workers.