One thing that struck me on my trip to America last year was how unfriendly the English are compared to the Americans (at least those in and around Atlanta). Don’t get me wrong, when you know people in England, they’re as nice as pie, but its not that often you’ll walk down the street and some stranger will say “Hi” to you. In America this happened all the time. Not only that, but when they do speak to you, they (from my point of view) string things out a little. When you say goodbye in America it’s “you have a nice day now” and they seem perfectly happy to chuck in all those unwarranted words. In England it seems we’ve gone to great lengths to  say as little as possible. “Cheers” is just about manageable.

This isn’t a complaint against us English. The novelty of being nice wore off by the end of the two weeks and I wanted to revert back to my old ways of sticking on my headphones and living in my own world. Being nice to strangers can be tiring when you’ve not had much practice.

Even in England though there are exceptions to the rule. We’re not always so closed off from each other.

I can think of three situations where we let our guard down and speak to people, regardless of who they are:

Christmas Day

The most obvious is Christmas Day. Walk down the street on Christmas Day and all of a sudden everyone you pass makes the effort to say “Hi”. Stand with a stranger long enough and it might even escalate into a full blown conversation.

Glastonbury Festival

Stan's visual debut on this blog

The 2^nd situation (for me at least) is the Glastonbury Festival. This probably applies to any event/situation where people are brought together by a common interest. Not only do strangers chat at Glastonbury Festival, but they go so far as to ask if they can share your log fire – and they’re always welcome – and they’re happy to return the favour.

Fellow Parents

I encountered the 3^rd situation over the weekend. Again it’s generated by a common interest. I took my son Stan over the park for the first time and had a play on the slide and swings. A couple other young families then entered the park. Strangely it seemed completely natural to chat to these people. If we passed in the street we’d probably have gone out of our ways to lower our heads to avoid eye contact.

I’m not entirely sure why I’ve written this blog post. The Christmas Day friendliness has always fascinated me, but maybe it’s just an excuse to finally post a picture of Stan on this blog…