I have been on holiday.
Yes, yes, I know – but although you might feel this is a common occurrence it really isn’t, and I needed a bit of confirmed sunshine.
Compared to ours, one of the obvious differences between sunny climes is the ability and tendency of people to meet each other face to face, out of doors, over a coffee or even a cigarette. I am not in any way whatsoever advocating smoking, but something fundamental changed when smoking became such a socially heinous activity. For a while, going outside for a smoke, brought disparate people together – far more so than smoking indoors did – and left those of us indoors with a bit of FOMO as we viewed our friends laughing and joking with random strangers. In our climate, here in the UK, this is still to be seen in the warmer months (haha), but rapidly changes as the temperature drops.
Accidental interaction with strangers (now being referred to as Vitamin S) has a well-researched, positive impact on well-being. So why, post-Covid, are people still anxious about meeting face-to-face?
Anecdotally, from conversations I have had recently, there seems to be a reluctance to “pop out of the office” for a chat/impromptu meeting, a reluctance to socialise and network after work (vital activity in the surveying world I posit), and, even more disturbing, a new tendency to clock-watch when attending the office at all.
We are wired to connect to others – introverts included – so why are we scuttling home at the first opportunity? Social isolation significantly increases the odds of premature death, ironically rivalling the likelihood of smoking doing so.
Whether you fear incidental interactions with strangers or crave them, they have apparently pretty much the same positive effect on your well-being so, go on, get out there and talk to strangers!
(Also, don’t bother going to see the French “comedy” of the same title of this piece, other than to interact with strangers of course).
Further reading: Sandstrom and Dunn 2014, Bernstein et al 2017, Van Lange et al 2021