Talking to Strangers

Did your parents, like mine, warn you against talking to strangers?  A big deal in my waspy childhood.  Didn't have to call upon that careful behavior much as a kid, though, because my hometown was small enough so I felt I knew everyone...or knew someone who knew their sister or neighbor.  You get the idea.  Strangers were understood more in theory than in practice.

There was an odd exception made, though.  It was about pen pals.  I went to a Catholic grade school where every year there would a concerted effort for us to raise a little cash for starving children in any one of an assortment of far away countries, and part of the deal was that our donations earned us the right to have a pen pal, with  whom we could communicate across the world.  Although we never met them (I remember pictures of kids dressed in blouses and skirts  at a convent school in Africa) we had a sense they weren't really strangers...because someone reputable had arranged for us to "meet" through the mails.

In any event, once on my own, I ignored all the warnings and made it a habit to talk to strangers.  On planes, buses, at restaurants, in church lobbies, wherever someone interesting appears approachable, I'm likely to initiate a conversation.  Turns out most of the time to be entirely worthwhile.  I find that asking questions is a surefire way to get thins started.  Most everyone likes to talk about themselves.

So why does it sound so creepy that Omegle has started a website devoted to talking with strangers?

Maybe because my talking with strangers is not done anonymously.  Each of us is face to face.  And the exercise is initiated with the understanding of an underlying possibility that we will, if of mutual interest, learn more of each other and even become friends.

The Omegle site is based on an interest in anonymity.  So one can pretend to be someone else.  And stay anonymous.  No one vets the meeting or connection.

Sorry, it just creeps me out.