Stranger danger!

‘Don’t talk to strangers!’

They drilled that into us as kids, didn’t they? Our parents, teachers, older siblings … I still hear their voices in my head.

As we became adults, we developed the instincts that let us choose which strangers were OK to talk to. And then we were able to go one step further and decide which strangers we wanted to talk to.

Thanks to a little episode of mine the other day, Jase has been forced to drill me with a new version of this rule. He delivers this new rule very seriously, with a slight roll of the eyes. Here it is:  

‘Just because you can talk to strangers, it Doesn’t Mean You Should.’

I’m to repeat this line over and over to myself every time I walk past absolutely anybody and anyone with a clipboard. Or else risk spending another lunch break chatting to somebody in a busy city street about a cause I’m not overly interested in. Just because I can hear them.  

But I was so excited when, amidst the city traffic, I heard a voice clearly say ‘can you spare two minutes of your time to chat to us, ma’am?’ I smiled because I understood the strange man, and then, on the back foot of my happy moment, I found myself saying: ‘sure’!

I learnt all about the cause he was promoting. I even asked him several questions about it, and didn’t have any problem hearing his responses. Did it take more than two minutes of my time? Two … times ten. But it was great practice chatting to him, OK? And it wound up being a worthy cause. Plus I was so grateful that I could understand him that I was even prepared to make an anonymous one-off donation. Except what he actually wanted was my bank account number so they could ‘direct debit’ a weekly donation instead. Hmmph. Well at least I heard that loud and clear. He did manage to wrangle my phone number out of me, but hey! Phone practice! That evening I happily picked up the phone and told the (less pushy) person on the other end that I’d checked my budget but was unable to commit to a weekly donation at this time.

Jase was dumbfounded that I even left my phone number (‘your real number?’) and is convinced they are going to keep calling. Perhaps. But that’ll give me more phone practice, right? Let’s look on the bright side. :-)

Anyhow, since then, he has taken to emphasising this new rule for me, just to make sure I remember to Be Selective about random conversations with strangers.

When we pulled out of our street the other day, we noticed some door-to-door people approaching with a clipboard. He looked at me, expectantly. I giggled, then nodded, straight-faced, and said:

‘Just because I can talk to strangers, it Doesn’t Mean I Should.’

Selective conversations again. Life is bliss!