After I came back from two weeks of backpacking in the Baltics, two years ago, I was asking myself why it is so easy to talk to anyone you meet when you are a traveller, and why (in most places!) this is something less accepted in your daily life.
Conversation Café promotes “talking to strangers” in the setting of an hour and a half dialogue. As an American organisation, the website also give tools “how to talk to strangers”, for people from cultures where this is less ‘aceepted’! In a very simple way it helps you from making first contact, into a small conversation, ending up “feeling at home in this world”!
It’s about opening up to the person next to you, being curious and probably being surprised by what you get. Is it also about trust? About trusting the other?
Level 1
Glance up from your book to see who else is around. Say hello to the bus driver who has driven you to work for 6 years.
Level 2
Glance up from your book, catch someone’s eye, and smile. Quickly, go back to reading. Smile at the bus driver, say good morning, and thank her as you get off.
Level 3
Comment on what someone near you is reading. Sustain a one-minute exchange. At the bus stop, say good morning to someone who has waited with you for the bus for years. Ask them how they are.
Level 4
Come to a Conversation Café. Only talk when you want to. Make up a bogus name if you need to. Promise yourself you can politely leave after half an hour if you are suffocating, angry, scared, bored, or sitting with people so much smarter or dumber than you that it’s not worth your time.
Level 5
Talk. Listen, Learn. At will. Feel at home in your skin. Feel at home in the world.
[from www.conversationcafe.org]
