Breaking the Social Ice

You’re sitting on a shuttle bus bench squeezed in between strangers facing another bench filled with more strangers. It’s a five-minute ride from the off-airport parking facility to your departure gate. Everyone on the bus who isn’t looking at their cell phone is looking at their shoes. No one is speaking even to people they’re traveling with.

Or maybe you’re in a long line at the pharmacy with only one attendant on duty and she’s tied up with a customer who has a problem with their prescription. 

Or you’re sitting in the reception area of a doctor’s office with one or more other patients waiting to be called.

If you’re a shy introvert, you’re probably squirming as you read this. Even if you’re not, you know the feeling of being in a group of strangers all waiting for something. Alone together. 

Now think about what happens in any of those situations and others like them when someone is willing to break the social ice and speak. There’s a group relaxation. Smiles appear on faces. Others may join in. Or not. But everyone benefits. The kindness of connection has been offered.

This is how simple it can be.

It’s a quiet weekday morning when I stop at a local chain drugstore to pick up some mailing supplies. The store aisles are mostly empty, but when I get to the checkout area, there’s a short line. As I take my place behind the man ahead of me, he turns and brandishes a copper-coated sauté pan.

“Have you ever used one of these things?” he asks, his eyes twinkling and his tone playful. I tell him I’ve seen them advertised on TV but haven’t bought one.

“I’m a sucker for TV ads,” he volunteers, and proceeds to engage me in a lively conversation peppered with questions like whether I think the pan really contains the titanium boldly advertised on the cardboard packaging.

In the meantime, another man has joined the line, and then another woman. All of us are drawn into the impromptu conversation initiated by the sauté-pan man.

Such people are a ray of sunshine piercing the gray curtain of isolation that so many of us hide behind when we go into a world of strangers. 

Why not be one of them? This is the challenge we all face. This is the gift we can all offer. Just open our mouths and speak and watch the magic happen.