On the Virtues of Not Being a Big Coward

Or, Why It’s Now Ok to Talk to Strangers (Just Don’t Get in Their Van)

I’m not exactly what you’d call an “extrovert.” Eating alone in a restaurant is an uncomfortable scenario for me, I find small talk painful (why, yes, it is sunny today—what an interesting observation!), and forget ever seeing me go to a party by myself. So, it is after great emotional upheaval that I bring myself to say the following: life is more rewarding and exhilarating when you put aside your insecurities about leaving your comfort zone and, to borrow the wisdom of Nike, “just do it.”

When I say “leave your comfort zone,” I don’t necessarily mean travel to Zimbabwe and take up with a tribe. The act can be as small as starting up a conversation with the person next to you in line or paying a stranger a compliment. I have personally reaped so many rewards from following this advice that I am ashamed when I let my insecurities get the better of me from time to time. Skeptical? Read on.

I’ve done my fair share of traveling and most of it was done by myself—that is, at the very most, I had friends waiting for me at my destination. But even the act of traveling can be an arduous experience if you’re alone. You have no one to distract you from the silent panic attack in your head as you see that your flight was cancelled and if you’re smart like me and brought emotionally taxing literature to read (thanks, Dostoevsky), you’re probably not going to want to resort to that. This is the situation in which I found myself on a layover in New York City. I was flying from Rome through Madrid to San Francisco and I found myself anxious, hungry, exhausted, and alone in a crowd of Spaniards. Fortunately, I was too tired to let my timidity overwhelm me, so I turned around and joined the delightful Castilian flurry. My Spanish isn’t the most impressive and my accent is a funny combination of Argentine, Spanish, and Mexican (thank you, Telemundo) but we understood one another well enough and I even learned a few things. This interaction helped us all easily pass what would have been three gruesome hours in line waiting to be rebooked and put up in hotels. But there was more: we all had to spend the night in New York so together we made the most of it by eating, getting to know each other, and reliving moments of the earlier World Cup games. Plus, since they were all traveling as tourists to San Francisco, I offered to show them around when we’d all arrived, so a few days later we spent a sunny day getting to know my beloved city. And now, should I decide to go to Spain, I know I’ll have friendly faces to give me a tour and show me their favorite place for sangria.

Still not convinced that you won’t end up accidentally chatting up a serial killer? Well, let’s put it another way: what if you risk never meeting a person who could be a future lifelong friend or, better yet, a love? Now, while the former type of communication might not have seemed so daunting (¿Español es fácil, no?), for me, this more intimate one required the loving support (read: jabbing elbow) of a dear friend to help me traverse the awkwardness boundary in my mind. And, boy, has it ever paid off. I’ve met and befriended a fascinating and kind person because I worked up the nerve to tell him that I enjoyed his movie (jab jab). I got a dollar (as a joke) from a celebrity I admire because I forced myself to raise my hand and ask him a question. But the single biggest and most rewarding feat that I accomplished was sending a casual and friendly text message to a boy in my class who would, unbeknownst to me, become the most important person in my life. Not a bad payoff at all.

And I’ve discovered that, as it turns out, I am not the only shy person in the world and perhaps the other party is even more bashful than myself. So you’d be doing both of you a favor by getting over your self-doubt and just going for it. The worst that could happen is that you would end up with a funny story to tell your friends (“She got off the elevator a few floors early ‘cause I told her she smelled nice!”), but the best case scenario is so beautiful because you don’t know where it could go or what it could become. And the moment after you conquer your fear comes with such a rush of confidence and strength that you will wonder why you don’t do it more often. So, go do yourself and your future a favor and talk to that girl in your class, or chat up the guy who is wearing your favorite unknown band’s shirt and I promise you won’t regret it. But, if the stranger you’re talking to offers you candy, turn and run.

Tatiana Sundeyeva enjoys travel, literature, puns, and anything with an unhealthy sugar content. And not necessarily in that order. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley where she got a degree in English with a minor in Italian.