Go ahead, talk to strangers â€"â€" it may be worth your while

Christie Genochio

Opinion editor

I pity whoever coined the cautionary phrase "Don't talk to strangers" because he or she didn't have a clue what they were missing. Sure, striking up a conversation in a dark alley with a hooded figure carrying a bottle of chloroform and a length of rope when you're six years old may not rank very high on a list of great decisions, but given a safe, controlled environment, there really isn't any harm in chatting up the person sitting beside you. After all, you never know what you might learn about them.

Or, more importantly, what you might learn about yourself.

Take, for example, an experience I had whilst sitting in the waiting area of the San Jose DMV one sunny summer afternoon. There I was, immersed in my fresh-off-the-rack copy of E.M. Forster's A Passage to India, when I saw in my periphery a young latino male sauntering my way. He seemed friendly enough, smiling broadly, with his bald head shiny in a "wax-on, wax-off" kind of way, his torso ensconced in a billowy SeanJohn shirt whose sleeves reached his elbows and his dark denim shants â€"â€" shorts masquerading as pants â€"â€" looming over his women's-clinic white Nike high-tops. Were I to hazard a guess, I would have placed him at about 15 years of age and said he was there to take his permit test.

I had no idea what I was in for when he started talking.

"Hey, girl, how you doin' today?" he asked, taking the empty seat beside me.

Looking up from my book, I smiled and replied, "Fine, thanks, You?"

He responded with a languorous grin and apparently chose to forego the customary getting-to-know-you banter, asking, "So, you got a man?"

My mind raced for a suitable answer, aware that a single girl, when approached by an unknown man of questionable character, must always respond in the affirmative. I blurted out the first thing that popped into my head:

"Yes. He's-a science major. Pre-med. Very tall-and strong. Huge muscles. He has kind of a bad temper, and he gets really jealous." I should have stopped at "yes," but for some reason the inertia of my tongue wouldn't let me stop until I realized my fake boyfriend was beginning to bear a striking resemblance to Bruce Banner, a.k.a. the Incredible Hulk.

Undaunted by my superhero significant other, the short, plump and hairless stranger engaged me in what would be one of the most memorable conversations of my life.

As it turned out, he was 27, not 15, lives with his parents and is the father of an 11-year-old girl and a 9-year-old boy, each from different mothers. He loves his mom, but is "pissed because she won't let me take out the car." Curious, I asked why not, and he told me it was because he'd gotten their other car impounded. Three times. And he isn't licensed (hence his purpose at the DMV).

Unsure how to react, I quickly diverted the topic of conversation by inquiring whether he had any siblings.

"Yeah," he replied. "My baby sister is 19. She had surgery last week, and when I visited her I treated her so good, all the nurses thought she was my lady. She's a lesbian, but that's cool because she brings all of her lesbian friends over, and, not that I'm bragging or anything, I've turned a couple of them straight. You know what I mean?"

Not only did I not have a clue what he meant, but I also had no idea how to respond, so instead I asked him where he'd earned the scar on his cheek. He told me he'd received it in a gang fight during a four-month stint in jail, where he'd taken up residency after breaking another man's jaw while brawling in a dance club parking lot. It wasn't really his fault though, he'd meant to hit the guy's eye, but "the dude" had moved, putting his jaw in the path of my companion's fist.

He explained to me the necessity of belonging to a gang, especially in jail â€"â€" it's a matter of survival, and no matter who you are or where you're from, you belong to one â€"â€" Latino, white, Asian, black and all the subsets therein.

To illustrate, he asked about my nationality. I informed him that I am Japanese, Portuguese, Irish, Italian and a myriad of other European nationalities.

"Okay-so you'd be in 'other,'" he replied after giving it some thought.

There was an awkward silence, which he broke by asking if I was in school. I answered that yes, I go to Santa Clara, adding that it's a Jesuit school. He said he used to go to a J.C., too, but now he's learning to be a refrigerator repairman. Then he asked if there are any "fine latinas" at Santa Clara and I assured him that all of our young ladies are lovely.

At that moment, the wee man sitting at window 17 beckoned him, calling his ticket number. Our conversation was brought to an abrupt halt as we shook hands and said good-bye.

We hadn't even exchanged names during the course of our hour-and-a-half-long chat, but I walked away from the encounter with a new perspective, an insight into the life of someone completely outside my realm of understanding, someone from way beyond my personal bubble. We'd conversed about violence, sexuality, relationships, gangs, education, race and family values, sharing our completely different approaches to all of those issues.

But honestly, all of our friends were strangers at one time â€"â€" if we habitually avoided engaging with new people, we'd never make new friends and would completely limit the scope of our understanding of the human experience. If the opportunity presents itself, talk with someone you don't know, expand your horizons. It's worth it.