Lack of confidence isn’t what stops me from interacting with strangers.
It’s a lack of interest.
Or perhaps that’s not quite right either.
Maybe I have a tendency to look for meaning in every interaction.
I want the conversation to go somewhere.
I want a question to reveal something.
A story to teach me something.
A person to surprise or enlighten me.
And then someone says, “Lovely weather we’re having.”
And I’m standing there thinking:
Is it?
Not because I’m rude.
I’m simply wondering where we’re going with this.
Perhaps that’s the problem with people who overthink social interaction. We sometimes expect every conversation to justify its existence.
But not every interaction needs to be profound.
Sometimes, a stranger is just a stranger.
Sometimes, the weather really is lovely.
Sometimes, you exchange three meaningless sentences with someone you’ll never see again, and that’s perfectly okay.
Maybe meaning isn’t always found in what was said.
Sometimes, it’s simply found in the fact that, for a brief moment, two completely separate lives crossed paths.
And perhaps that’s enough.
