There is a certain love/hate relationship we all have with strangers. The whole idea of strangers, is that they are strange. Although we fear them for the element of the ‘unknown’, we also desire them for the possibilities they posses. So many texts encapsulate the idea of the stranger, proving how fixated we are with strangers, and also how challenged we are by their very existence.
Since childhood, it has been drilled into us, “don’t talk to strangers!”, and as a result a majority of us resist them. They are the epitome of terror in our world. The xenophobic society we are, fearing difference, ethnicities; conditioned to distrust anything that is unique and obscure. This child hood phrase as caused us to shun and ignore most strangers. Any old man sitting on a park bench watching children play on the swings is labelled a paedophile. A man sitting in his car outside a school= flasher (and perhaps also paedophile). And a women standing on the street in knee high boots? Sans doute, she is a prostitute. These assumptions however are just mental short cuts to judge people and excuse our dismissal of them. I’m not suggesting we hop in the car with the man and strike conversation, I just wish to rise the point that we are constantly in fear of the “other”.
Even those who don’t appear odd, we still avoid in order to remain “civil”. A trip to the shops, a dentist waiting room, a cycling class at the gym—any public entrance in fact, our social interaction is limited. Instead, these public spaces “encourage action, not interaction” (Bauman:2000:97). There is a tacit understanding to “mind your own business”. Note however, that in civil spaces, the element of fear is usually eliminated as we assume our fellow strangers surrounding us are all engaging in this public space for the same reason. These safe zones become a nursery for our civility; our social field without being social; the one place you are most introverted and veiled by the mask of “civility”, yet simultaneously so public.
Bauman also writes though….
“the meeting of a stranger is an event without a past. More often than not, it is an event without a future (It is expected to be, hoped to be, free of a future), a story most certainly ‘not to be continued…like the spider whose entire world is enclosed in the web it spins out of its own abdomen, the sole support which strangers-in-meeting may count on must be woven from the thin and loose yarn of their looks, words and guestures”
This definition of strangers implies that when we meet new people, we don’t intend to meet them again. This is the allure of strangers. They are not only strange to us, be we are strange to them. They are not just an event without a past, but your past is a new event to them. Your history and becomings, and all the assemblages that form your identity are unknown to the stranger. Thus to strangers, you can re-create your subjectivity, make a new person. Lie if you wish, act different for a day, and the truth will never be known.
Moreover, it is this “loose yarn of their looks, words and guestures” that strangers have to base each other on. With only a handful of cues to who there are, their identity is a mystery, and we, like any mystery in the world, are desperate for answers and reasons. Just like science, we want to “solve” them. It is in our very nature to write in our minds a conclusion to their strange, unfinished narrative. So in this sense, we are attracted to them, not because they themselves are particularly special, but just because we need to figure them out. they have the possibility of opening us up to brand new things, a chance that they could be our idyllic imaginary friend come to life. Their strangeness essentially masks their reality.
It is for this reason that one night stands are so popular. Even in the “rules for one night stands”, rule 3 is that they must be a stranger. this is becasue they represent hope, fun, discoveries. We have essentially solved them, figured them out on a stronger basis than their image on the street. And having no future, we too can momentarily create our own identity.
