Blog 2 of 3: How to Talk to Strangers, Or Maybe Just Treat Them Like Friends?

The following statement inspired this blog post:

"The easiest way to make friends is to treat everyone as though they're already your friend." I won’t cite it as I cannot remember where I read it.

I don't think the idea behind the quote implies introducing yourself by hugging everyone, sitting at strangers' tables uninvited, or pretending you've known someone for years. Rather, I think the idea is much simpler than that. Approach people with generosity instead of suspicion. Be curious instead of guarded. Assume warmth before distance. It sounds almost obvious, yet I realised how rarely we actually do it. We often wait for permission to be friendly, convincing ourselves that we'll somehow know when the "right" moment arrives. In reality, most friendships don't begin with a grand gesture. They begin with ordinary conversations between two people who simply decide to keep talking.

The not so random valuable interactions

Pretending to talk with people sometimes makes you talk to people. I was taking part in a university photoshoot and the photographer wanted natural-looking conversation in the pictures. So, there I was, chatting away with two other students I'd never met before. Trying especially hard not to look awkward while someone pointed a camera at us.

As we talked, one of them mentioned the degree they were studying. Coincidentally, I'd recently been gifted several books on that exact subject, and I had no use for them. So I offered the books and once the photoshoot finished, we walked together back to university to collect them. What began as a staged conversation turned into a real one, and somewhere along the walk we enjoyed each other’s company enough that they asked if I'd like to join them for dinner, and I said yes.

A few hours earlier we had been complete strangers, but by the evening, we were sharing noodles, talking about university, life, and more random things like our blood type. Will I see them again? Maybe, university can be very small sometimes; or maybe not. But then again, I didn’t agree to hang out with friendship being the objective. Dinner that evening was very enjoyable. It might not have become the beginning of a lifelong friendship, but it reminded me how quickly strangers can become familiar. Sometimes people enter your life for years. Sometimes they stay for a single afternoon. Neither experience is more valuable than the other. We often place so much pressure on meeting people that we forget moments can matter without becoming permanent.

Another random event from last week comes from my first day working alongside one of my coworkers. We have staff rotations between shops, so you don’t always work with the same people. It had been a long shift, and while we were getting our bags to leave, I mentioned that I'd love to have an ice cream right there and then. They replied that a new ice cream shop had recently opened nearby and without really thinking about it, like it often happens, I asked if they would like to go with me for some, and they said yes! That was it.

No elaborate plan. No awkward overthinking. Just a question. After we closed, we walked together and got our ice creams while getting to know a bit more about each other. This was someone I'd met that day, and it will become one of those small memories that stays with me. To date, having a few weeks passed, I can say we’ve become closer with this coworker. We went to a fringe show together and had dinner, and working together has become way more fun. The relationship we are building will take time, but it’s each small interaction that makes the foundation stronger.

Looking back, it was not my intention to make them my friends or for us to do something together. I simply didn't overcomplicate the interaction. When people talk about speaking to strangers, they often imagine extraordinary confidence or effortless charisma as though there is some secret ability that naturally outgoing people possess. I don't think that's true.

Most conversations don't begin because someone delivers the perfect opening line. They begin because someone asks one extra question, because they notice something, because they decide not to end the conversation at "How's your day?" or just the polite nod. The truth is that we are usually much more alike than we realise. Most people enjoy feeling noticed. Most people, probably ourselves, appreciate genuine interest, and people like talking to someone who is listening.

Of course, not every interaction will lead anywhere, and that's okay. Perhaps one of the biggest mistakes we make is believing every conversation has to become something bigger. Sometimes we talk to people because we secretly hope they'll become our best friend, our next networking contact, or someone who'll somehow change our life. But kindness with an agenda isn't really kindness.

When I offered those books after the photoshoot, I wasn't expecting dinner. When my coworker agreed to get ice cream, I wasn't hoping to gain some insider gossip. And neither of them invited me because they wanted something from me. Sometimes good conversations are enough. Sometimes spending an hour eating together is enough. Sometimes a pleasant memory is enough.

We've become so focused on outcomes that we forget experiences have value simply because they happened. Not every friendship has to last forever to matter, as only some people will remain in our lives for decades. Others appear for an evening, a shift at work, or a university event before continuing their own very separate path, and that doesn't make those moments any less meaningful. If anything, there's something beautiful and poetic about knowing you'll probably never cross paths again, yet still feeling grateful that you did.

Living in Edinburgh doesn't make it easy

One of the things you learn by living in a place, is how relationships are created and built. I’ve experienced firsthand how people’s attitudes can change when you tell them that you are, in fact, staying. Living in Edinburgh is not for the weak, because this is, what we like to call in my family, a passage city.

People come to work, to study, on holidays, but always for a set time, or the longest time they are able to stay. There is no guarantee you’ll live near the friend you’ve made at university after university. I understand the anxiety of feeling as though you’ve lost someone before they’ve even left. However, in the same way we don’t know the future, we don’t know what place our relationships will ultimately have in our lives or how they will shape us.

So if I could offer one piece of advice, without pretending I've mastered the art of talking to strangers or building relationships, but having quite a portfolio of random conversations, it would simply be this: ask the extra question. Accept the invitation. Invite someone yourself. Remember their name. Assume kindness before suspicion. Be vulnerable (mindfully and rationally).

And don't worry if nothing extraordinary happens, because most of the time, extraordinary moments don't announce themselves, they look and feel ordinary. A conversation during a photoshoot, an ice cream after work, a shared meal with people you didn't know that morning, or sitting on the bus with the old lady you chatted with at the bus stop. Maybe that's all circumstantial friendship really is: a collection of small moments where two strangers decide, even briefly, to share a little of their lives with each other.

The funny thing is, I've realised that treating people like friends doesn't mean assuming they'll become one. It simply means approaching them with the same openness, generosity, and curiosity you'd naturally show someone you already care about. Not because you're expecting something in return or because you're trying to build your network, simply because it's a nicer way to move through the world and engage with people.

---

In the first article of this series, I wrote about why relationships matter. This time, I wanted to write about how they often begin: not with perfectly crafted introductions, but with ordinary conversations and small acts of kindness. In the final article, I'll move one step further. Because if relationships begin with conversations, what keeps them going are the qualities we bring into them, the soft skills that are so often dismissed, yet quietly shape almost every opportunity we encounter. Maybe the best conversations aren't the ones that change our careers, but those that remind us that strangers are not strangers for long.