The People We Meet Pt. 1

I am going to start a new installment called "The People We Meet." A few reasons I thought about this: I am horrible at remembering peoples' names so I thought it would be a good idea to write it down with a note as to what we talked about after each encounter; the other reason is more psychological, I think people (maybe just me) have this impression that meeting new people is hard and intimidating for fear of our interaction being rebuffed. This fear is largely unfounded.

People want positive interactions and will do almost anything to keep a conversation positive. If you happen to say something abrasive, they might correct you or express their belief about the topic - but most of the time they will just stop the conversation with the "horrid" result of awkwardness. And how bad is that, really? It proves nothing about either of the participants’ characters. It might prove something about the situation (fundamental attribution error) and it may aid in someone’s confirmation bias that they are poor at interpersonal interactions.

Albert Ellis is known for doing something like this.

Albert Ellis had exaggerated fears of speaking in public and during his adolescence he was extremely shy around women. At age 19, already showing signs of thinking like a cognitive-behavioral therapist, he forced himself to talk to 100 women in the Bronx Botanical Gardens over a period of a month. Even though he didn't get a date, he reported that he desensitized himself to his fear of rejection by women.

I am going to include the persons real name (unless we end up talking about sensitive information – which probably won’t happen since they are first meetings); the place we met; the date and time; a very brief summary of what we talked about; and a symbol indicating whether I thought the interaction was positive (+), negative (-), or neutral (0).

Eventually I want to analyze the kind of interactions I have and see where I need to improve, what gender/age differences there are, and what common topics arise for me on first meetings. I want to make clear these are strictly people I have met for the first time – no one I have met twice or more or friends I got together with for dinner, etc. Those are my goals and here are the people I met today.

4.23.2008 1:55PM Outside Walter Library UMN Sylvia: I began the conversation by asking her what her tattoo said. It said “chance.” I thought this was interesting because I have never seen a “chance” tattoo, but many “fate” tattoos. (+)

4.23.2008 2:45PM Northrop Mall Grass Danielle: I saw a friend, Ricky, playing Frisbee with someone and thought I would join in. We had sick minds and made many sexual jokes. (+)

4.23.2008 5:20PM Walter Library Study Area Sara(h): She was writing her senior paper in Spanish as well as being a pre-med student. Which is where her paper and med interest crossed over – she was writing a 30 pager on medicine in Spain around 1850. (0)

4.23.2008 6:00PM Northrop Mall Grass Rodrigo and Mike: They were juggling a soccer ball with an acquaintance of mine, Matt, and I decided to join them. We exchanged pleasantries and they made fun of Rodrigo because he was white with an Hispanic name calling him Juan and Dominique. (+)